Johann Salomo Semler
Johann Salomo Semler (18 December 1725 – 14 March 1791) was a German church historian, biblical commentator, and critic of ecclesiastical documents and of the history of dogmas. He is sometimes known as "the father of German rationalism".
Youth and education
He was born at
Early work
After the death of Baumgarten in 1757, Semler became head of the theological faculty, and the fierce opposition provoked by his writings and lectures only helped increase his fame as a professor. His popularity continued undiminished until 1779. In that year he produced a reply (Beantwortung der Fragmente eines Ungenannten) to the Wolfenbuttel Fragments (see Reimarus) and to KF Bahrdt's confession of faith, a step which was interpreted by the extreme rationalists as a revocation of his own rationalistic position.
Later work and impact
Contemporary perception
Even the Prussian government, which favoured Bahrdt, made known its displeasure at this new but quite consistent aspect of his position. But, though Semler was not inconsistent with himself in attacking the views of Reimarus and Bahrdt, his popularity began to decline, and towards the end of his life he felt a need to emphasize the apologetic and conservative value of true historical inquiry. His defence of the notorious edict of July 9, 1788, issued by the Prussian minister for ecclesiastical affairs, Johann Christoph von Wöllner, the object of which was to enforce Lutheran orthodoxy, might be cited as a sign of the decline of his powers and of an unfaithfulness to his principles. He died at Halle, Magdeburg, exhausted and disappointed.
Classification
The importance of Semler, sometimes called "the father of German rationalism", in the history of theology and the human mind is that of a critic of biblical and ecclesiastical documents and of the history of dogmas. He was not a philosophical thinker or theologian, though he insisted, with an energy and persistency before unknown, on certain distinctions of great importance when properly worked out and applied, e.g. the distinction between religion and theology, that between private personal beliefs and public historical creeds, and that between the local and temporal and the permanent elements of historical religion. His great work was that of the critic. He was the first to reject the equal value of the Old and New Testaments, the uniform authority of all parts of the Bible, the divine authority of the traditional canon of Scripture, the inspiration and supposed correctness of the text of the Old and New Testaments, and, generally, the identification of revelation with Scripture.
Though to some extent anticipated by the British deist,
His concept of church has been contrasted with Friedrich Schleiermacher's.[1]
Bibliography
Tholuck gives 171 as the number of Semler's works, of which only two reached a second edition. Amongst the major ones are:
- Commentatio de demoniacis (Halle, 1760, 4th ed. 1779)
- Umständliche Untersuchung der damonischen Leute (1762)
- Versuch einer biblischen Damonologie (1776)
- Selecta capita historiae ecclesiasticae (3 vols., Halle, 1767–1769)
- Abhandlung von freier Untersuchung des Kanon (Halle, 1771–1775)
- Apparatus ad liberalem N. T. interpretationem (1767, ad V. T., 1773)
- Institutio ad doctrinam Christ. liberaliter discendam (Halle, 1774),
- Über historische, gesellschaftliche, und moralische Religion der Christen (1786)
- Semler's Lebensbeschreibung, von ihm selbst abgefasst (Halle, 1781–1782) autobiography
For estimates of Semler, see:
- Wilhelm Gass, Geschichte der protestantischen Dogmatik (Berlin, 1854–1867)
- Isaak Dorner, Geschichte der protestantischen Theologie (Munich, 1867)
- article in Herzog's Realencyklopädie
- Adolf Hilgenfeld, Historische-kritische Einleitung in das Neue Testament (Leipzig, 1875)
- F. C. Baur, Epochen der kirchlichen Geschichtsschreibung (1852)
- Albrecht Ritschl, Geschichte des Pietismus (Bonn. 1880-1888)
Notes
- ISBN 978-0-664-20908-7.
References
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Semler, Johann Salomo". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 630. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the