BAUR, FERDINAND CHRISTIAN leader of the Tubingen school of theology, was born in Schmiden, near Cannstatt, on June 21, 1792. After receiving an early training in the theological seminary at Blaubeuren, he went in 18og to the University of Tubingen. In 1817 Baur returned to the theological seminary at Blaubeuren as professor. He had already, in 1817, written a review of G. Kaiser's Biblische Theologie for Bengel's Archiv fur Theologie (ii. 656) ; its tone was moderate and con servative. His first important work, Symbolik and Mythologic oder die Naturreligion des Altertums showed signs of the influence of Schelling and more particularly of Friedrich Schleiermacher. In 1826 he was appointed professor of theology at Tubingen. It is with Tubingen that his greatest literary achieve ments are associated. His earlier publications here treated of mythology and the history of dogma. Das manichiiische Religions system appeared in 1831, Apollonius von Tyana in 1832, Die Christliche Gnosis in 1835, and Uber das Christliche im Plato nismus oder Socrates and Christus in 1837. Meantime Baur had adopted completely the Hegelian philosophy of history. "Without philosophy," he has said, "history is always for me dead and dumb." The change of view is illustrated clearly in the essay, published in the Tuibinger Zeitschri f t for 1831, on the Christ party in the Corinthian Church. Baur contends that St. Paul was opposed in Corinth by a Jewish-Christian party, and finds traces of a keen conflict of parties in the post-apostolic age. The theory is further developed in a later work (1835, the year in which David Strauss' Leben Jesu was published), fiber die sogenannten Pastoralbrie f e. In this Baur attempts to prove that the false teachers mentioned in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus are the Gnostics, particularly the Marcionites, of the second century, and consequently that the Epistles were produced in the middle of this century in opposition to Gnosticism. In Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi, sein Leben and Wirken, seine Briefe and seine Lehre (1845) he contends that only the Epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians and Romans are genuinely Pauline, and that the Paul of Acts is a different person from the Paul of these genuine Epistles, the author being a Paulinist who is at pains to represent Peter as far as possible as a Paulinist and Paul as far as possible as a Petrinist. Those writings alone he considers genuine in which the conflict between Jewish-Christians and Gentile-Chris tians is clearly marked. In his Kritische Untersuchungen uber die kanonischen Evangelien, ihr Verhdltniss zu einander, ihren Charakter and Ursprung (1847) he maintains that the authors were conscious of the conflict of parties; the Gospels reveal a mediating or conciliatory tendency (Tendenz) on the part of the writers or redactors. The Gospels, in fact, are adaptations or redactions of an older Gospel, such as the Gospel of the Hebrews, of Peter, of the Egyptians, or of the Ebionites. The Petrine Matthew bears the closest relationship to this original Gospel (Urevangelium) ; the Pauline Luke is later and arose indepen dently; Mark represents a still later development ; the account in John is idealistic : it "does not possess historical truth, and can not and does not really lay claim to it." He found in the conflict between Petrinism and Paulinism the key to the literature of the and 2nd centuries.
But Baur was a theologian and historian as well as a Biblical critic. As early as 1834 he published a strictly theological work Gegensatz .des Katholicismus and Protestantismus nach den Prinzipien and Hauptdogmen der beiden Lehrbegriffe, a strong defence of Protestantism on the lines of Schleiermacher's Glau benslehre, and a vigorous reply to J. Mohler's Symbolik (1833). This was followed by his larger histories of dogma, Die Christliche Lehre von der Versohnung in ihrer geschiclitlichen Entwicklung bis auf die neueste Zeit (1838), Die Christliche Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit and Menschwerdung Gottes in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung (1841-43), and the Lehrbucli der Christlichen Dogmengeschichte (1847). The value of these works is impaired somewhat by Baur's habit of making the history of dogma con form to the formulae of Hegel's philosophy, a procedure "which only served to obscure the truth and profundity of his conception of history as a true development of the human mind" (Pfleiderer). Baur, however, soon came to attach more importance to per sonality, and to distinguish more carefully between religion and philosophy. The change is marked in his Epochen der kirchlichen Geschichtschreibung (1852), Das Christenthum and die Christ liche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte (1853) and Die Christ liche Kirche von An f ang des vierten bis zum Ende des sechsten Jahrhunderts (1859), works preparatory to his Kirchengeschichte, in which the change of view is specially pronounced. The Kirchen geschichte was published in five volumes during the years partly by Baur himself, partly by his son, Ferdinand Baur, and his son-in-law, Eduard Zeller, from notes and lectures which the author left behind him. Pfleiderer describes this work, especially the first volume, as "a classic for all time." "Taken as a whole, it is the first thorough and satisfactory attempt to explain the rise of Christianity and the Church on strictly historical lines, i.e., as a natural development of the religious spirit of our race under the combined operation of various human causes" (Development of Theology, p. 288). Baur's lectures on the history of dogma, Ausfuhrliche Vorlesungen uber die Christliche Dogmengeschichte, were published later by his son (1865-68).
Baur's views were revolutionary and often extreme; but, what ever may be thought of them, it is admitted that as a critic he rendered a great service to theological science.