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Dr. Schaff as Uniting Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon Scholarship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2009

John Fletcher Hurst
Affiliation:
Of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Extract

In the summer of 1843 there called at the plain and obscure study of a young man in Berlin two visitors from America. They were a committee in search of a professor of theology in the German Reformed Theological Seminary, in Mercers-burg, Pennsylvania. They had consulted Tholuck, Julius Müller, and Neander, as to the most fitting man for the position. All pointed to young Schaff. The delegates visited him to make the offer in person. Though only twenty-four years old, he had given strong proof of his ecumenical quality. A native of Switzerland, he had gone to Tübingen and Halle for his initial theological studies; had been drawn later to Berlin to complete them, under that “last of the Church Fathers,” Neander; and had made an iter academicum to Italy. He was now entering upon his duties as an academic teacher in the University of Berlin. He accepted the call to America. But he was not to leave the Old World without giving still further proof of that intense cosmopolitan spirit which grew with his years and expanding knowledge. The young Teuton was already eager to learn of Anglo-Saxon theology. It was a prophecy of his later unifying power.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Church History 1894

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References

page 9 note 1 In the congratulatory letter of the theological faculty of the University of Berlin, addressed to Dr. Schaff on the fiftieth anniversary of his academic teaching, he was likened to Jerome, “the great mediator between the Greek and Latin Church.” Cf. Semi-Centennial of Philip Schaff, New York, 1893, p. 11.Google Scholar

page 10 note 1 The Reunion of Christendom, a paper prepared for the Parliament of Religions and the National Conference of the Evangelical Alliance held in Chicago, September and October, 1893. New York, 1893.

page 10 note 2 Der Deutsche Kirchenfreund, Organ für die gemeinsamen Interessen der Amerikanisch-deutschen Kirchen. Mercersburg, Penn. 6 vols., 1848–54.

page 10 note 3 Religious Encyclopœdia; or, Dictionary of Biblical, Historical, Doctrinal, and Practical Theology, Based on the Real-Encyklopädie of Herzog, Plitt, and Hauck, in connection with Rev. Samuel Macauley Jackson, and Rev. David Schley Schaff. 4 vols. New York, 1891.

page 10 note 4 International Illustrated Commentary on the New Testament. 4 vols. New York and Edinburgh, 18791882.Google Scholar

page 10 note 5 A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homileti-cal. 25 vols. New York and Edinburgh, 18641880.Google Scholar

page 10 note 6 Theological and Philosophical Library: A Series of Text-Books, Original and Translated, for Colleges and Theological Seminaries. 5 vols. New York and London, 1871–74.

page 10 note 7 Germany: its Universities, Theology, and Religion. With sketches of Neander, Tholuck, Olshausen, Hengstenberg, Twesten, Nitzsch, Müller, Ullmann, Rothe, Dorner, Lange, Ebrard, Wichern, and other distinguished divines of the age. Philadelphia, 1857.

page 11 note 1 Deutsches Gesangbuch: Eine Auswahl geistlicher Lieder aus allen Zeiten der Christlichen Kirche. Nach den besten hymnologischen Quellen bearbeitet und mit erläuternden Bemerkungen über Verfasser, Inhalt und Geschichte der Lieder versehen. Philadelphia, 1874.

page 11 note 2 Christ in Song. Hymns of Immanuel. New York, 1868; London, 1869.Google Scholar