Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834), raised among the Moravian Brethren, preacher at the Charité hospital in Berlin and then at the Dreifaltigkeitskirche, professor at Halle and a founder of the University of Berlin. Called the father of modern liberal theology: religion, he argued, is neither knowing nor doing but feeling — in The Christian Faith, “the feeling of absolute dependence” — and doctrine is the church’s account of that feeling as Christ has shaped it. He was also the founder of modern hermeneutics, Plato’s translator, and a preacher every Sunday of his working life.
Works (8)
- Brief Outline of the Study of Theology — Schleiermacher’s Kurze Darstellung des theologischen Studiums (1811, second edition 1830), a survey of theology as one science in numbered sections: Philosophical Theology (apologetics and polemics), Historical Theology (exegetical, historical and dogmatic theology, with statistics) and Practical Theology (church service and church government). The translation is preceded by the dedication to John Pye Smith, the translator’s preface, a tabular sketch of Schleiermacher’s life and the Reminiscences of Schleiermacher. (12 notes)
- Christmas Eve, A Dialogue on the Celebration of Christmas — Schleiermacher’s little dialogue of 1806, set in a German household on Christmas Eve, in which a family and their friends keep the feast with gifts, music and conversation, and each in turn gives an account of what the birth of the Child means: a feast of the feelings and of the home, in which the person of Christ is the centre of all religious joy. The translator’s preface and an appendix by Dr. Carl Schwarz on the dialogue are included. (3 notes)
- Introductions to the Dialogues of Plato — Schleiermacher’s general introduction to Plato and his introductions to each dialogue, in three parts (Part I: the Phaedrus, Lysis, Protagoras and the dialogues grouped with them, with the Apology, Crito and Ion; Part II: the Gorgias, Theaetetus and the dialogues to the Banquet, Phaedon and Philebus, with the Theages, Erastae, Alcibiades I, Menexenus, Larger Hippias and Clitophon; Part III: the Republic, with the Timaeus and Critias), followed by the translator’s notes. (36 notes)
- On Religion — Five speeches addressed to the educated Romantics of Berlin who had turned their backs on religion: religion is neither metaphysics nor morals but “a sense and taste for the Infinite”. The book from which Protestant liberal theology is usually dated. Oman translated the third edition (1821) with Schleiermacher’s later explanations, and gives the changes from the first edition in an appendix. (7 notes)
- Selected Sermons — Twenty-seven sermons from Schleiermacher’s ministry at Halle and at the Dreifaltigkeitskirche in Berlin, with a biographical sketch by the translator. The third was preached in 1813, in the war of liberation against Napoleon. (28 notes)
- Soliloquies — Schleiermacher’s Monologen of 1800, five reflective addresses to himself (Reflection, Soundings, The World, Prospect, Youth and Age) on the freedom and individuality of the moral life, with the translator’s preface and introduction, Schleiermacher’s prefaces to the second and third editions, his later revisions of the text, and an appendix on the development of his philosophical system and his conception of a philosopher-priest, with a bibliography. US public domain only (1926). (14 notes)
- The Christian Faith — The great systematic theology of the father of modern liberal theology, in which doctrine is the church’s account of the Christian’s God-consciousness, “the feeling of absolute dependence”, as Christ has shaped it. After an introduction on the church, on Christianity and on the method of dogmatics, the first part develops the religious self-consciousness that every Christian experience presupposes (creation, preservation, and the divine attributes of eternity, omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience); the second part sets out its two sides, the consciousness of sin (original and actual sin, the holiness and justice of God) and the consciousness of grace (the person and work of Christ, regeneration, sanctification, election, the church, the means of grace and the last things); and a conclusion treats the divine Trinity. Public domain in the US only; in copyright in the UK until 2060. (62 notes)
- The Life of Schleiermacher — Frederica Rowan’s translation of Schleiermacher’s Autobiography and Letters (London, 1860, two volumes), as published by his family: his own sketch of his childhood, his parents’ letters, his years with the Moravians, at Halle and as a tutor, his letters from Landsberg, Berlin, Potsdam and Stolpe (volume 1), then Halle, his love for Henriette von Willich, his marriage and family life in Berlin, the wars, his journeys, and his death in 1834 (volume 2). The book prints no chapter titles; the notes follow its running heads. (43 notes)