Philip Schaff

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Philip Schaff (1880s)

Philip Schaff (baptized January 12, 1819 in Chur ; † October 20, 1893 in New York ) was a Protestant theologian and church historian who was born in Switzerland and trained in Germany and who lived and taught in the United States after completing his training .

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Philip Schaff was born in Chur and trained at the grammar school in Stuttgart . An event that shaped his piety throughout his life was a revival that he experienced as a 15-year-old in the Evangelical Brethren Congregation in Korntal .

At the universities of Tübingen , Halle and Berlin he was successively influenced by Ferdinand Christian Baur , August Tholuck and Julius Müller , David Friedrich Strauss and above all by August Neander . In Berlin he passed the theological exam in 1841 and passed the exams for a professorship. He then traveled through Italy and Sicily as a teacher to Baron Krischer . In 1842 he was a private lecturer at the University of Berlin , where he taught exegesis and church history. In 1843 he was appointed professor of church history and biblical writings at the German Reformed Theological Seminary of Mercersburg in Pennsylvania , which at that time was the only theological seminary of this church in America.

On his way there he stayed in England for a while, where he met Edward Pusey and other tractors . His inaugural speech The Principle of Protestantism , which he gave in German in Reading in Pennsylvania in 1844 and which was published in German with an English version by John Williamson Nevin , was pioneering work in English in the field of confessional writings (i.e. the authoritative ecclesiastical formulation of religious Doctrines in creeds). This speech and the “Mercersburg theology” that he taught seemed too pro- Catholic to some , so that he was accused of spreading heresy . But at the synod in York in 1845 he was unanimously acquitted.

Schaff's broad views strongly influenced the German Reformed Church through his teaching activities in Mercersburg, through his mastery of the English language in the German Reformed congregations and schools in America, through his hymn book (1859), through his work as chairman of the committee for preparation a new liturgy and in 1863 through the publication of the Heidelberg Catechism . His history of the apostolic church (German 1851; English 1853) and his history of the Christian church (7 volumes, 1858–1890) ushered in a new period in the study of church history in America.

In 1854 he visited Europe as a representative of the German congregations in America at the Kirchentag in Frankfurt am Main and at the Swiss Pastors' Conference in Basel . He taught about America in Germany and received a doctorate in theology from the University of Berlin.

As a result of the devastation of the American Civil War , the Theological Seminary in Mercersburg was closed for a time. This made Dr. Create 1863 Secretary of the Sabbath Committee in New York , which campaigned against "continental Sunday". He held this position until 1870. In 1865 he founded the first German Sunday school in Stuttgart . From 1862–1867 he taught church history in Andover.

Schaff was a member of the Leipzig Historical Society , the Historical Society of the Netherlands and other historical and literary associations in Europe and America. He was one of the founders and honorary secretary of the American branch of the Evangelical Alliance and was sent to Europe in 1869, 1872 and 1873 to organize the general conference of the Alliance, which took place in New York after two postponements due to the Franco-Prussian War in 1873. Likewise, in 1871 Schaff was one of the delegates of the alliance who asked the Russian emperor for religious freedom for his subjects in the Baltic provinces .

In 1870 he became professor at the Theological Seminary in New York , where he held the chair of theological encyclopedia and Christian creeds until 1873, then Hebrew and related languages ​​until 1874, Holy Scriptures until 1887 and finally church history until his death in 1893 served as president of the committee that translated the American Standard Version of the Bible, but died before it was published in 1901.

His history of the Christian church is similar to the work of Neander, but is less biographical and more pictorial than philosophical. He also wrote biographies, catechisms and hymn books for children, manuals of religious poetry, lectures and essays on Dante , etc. He translated Johann Jakob Herzog's Real Encyclopedia for Protestant Theology and Church into English.

By participating in the Evangelical Alliance and the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, as well as in Germany through the monthly Kirchenfreund , he made serious efforts to promote the unity and unification of Christians. His hope was that the Pope would give up the dogma of infallibility and bring about a reunion of Christians. He realized that he was a "mediator between German and Anglo-American theology and Christianity".

David Schaff

His son David Schley Schaff (1852-1941) was Professor of Church History at Lane Theological Seminary from 1897 to 1903 and after 1903 at the Western Theological Seminary in Allegheny . He wrote a commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (1882) and Life of Philip Schaff (1897). Another work is his Through the Bible Lands: Notes of Travel in Egypt, the Desert and Palestine from 1878.

Fonts

  • History of the Christian Church in 8 volumes
  • A Library of Religious Poetry. A Collection of The Best Religious Poems of all Ages and Tongues , London etc. 1881.
  • Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes . 3 volumes, 1877–1882.
  • The Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches
  • The Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge , ed. Schaff. American edition of the German Real Encyclopedia for Protestant Theology and Church by Johann Jakob Herzog
  • Ante-Nicene Fathers two series of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers in 38 volumes. Ed. Schaff et al.

literature

Web links

Commons : Philip Schaff  - Collection of Images
Wikiquote: Philip Schaff  - Quotes

Footnotes

  1. ^ Klaus Penzel: Schaff, Philip . In: TRE , Volume 30, pp. 62–65, here p. 62.
personal data
SURNAME Do it, Philip
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schaff, Philip; Sheep, Philip; Schaf, Philipp; Schaff, Philipp; Shaff, Filipp
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American Protestant theologian and church historian
DATE OF BIRTH baptized January 12, 1819
PLACE OF BIRTH Chur , Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH October 20, 1893
Place of death new York