THOLUCK, FRIEDRICH AUGUST GOTTREU (1799-1877), German Protestant divine, was born at Breslau, on March 3o, 1799. He studied at Breslau and at Berlin, where he was received into the house of the Orientalist Heinrich Fried rich von Diez (1750-1817). He came under the influence of the pietist Baron Ernst von Kottwitz (1757-1843), who became his "spiritual father," and of the historian Neander. In 1821 he was Privatdozent and in 1823 became professor extraordinarius of theology in Berlin. Die wa/ire Weihe des Zweifiers (1823 ; 9th ed., with the title Die Lehre von der Siinde and dem V ersoh ner, 187o), the outcome of his own religious history, secured his commanding position as the Pietistic apologist of Evangelical Christianity. In 1825, with the aid of the Prussian government, he visited the libraries of England and Holland, and on his re turn was appointed (in 1826) professor ordinarius of theology at Halle, the centre of German rationalism, where he afterwards became preacher and member of the supreme consistorial council. Here he sought to combine in a higher unity the learning and to some extent the rationalism of J. S. Semler with the devout and active pietism of A. H. Francke ; and, in spite of the opposition of the theological faculty of the university, he succeeded in chang ing the character of its theology. Tholuck was also one of the prominent members of the Evangelical Alliance, and few men were more widely known or more beloved throughout the Protestant world than he. As a preacher he ranked among the foremost of his
time. He died at Halle on June io, 1877.
After his commentaries (on Romans, the Gospel of John, the Sermon on the Mount and the Epistle to the Hebrews) and several volumes of sermons, his best-known books are Stunden christlicher Andacht (1839; 8th ed., 187o), intended to take the place of J. H. D. Zschokke's standard rationalistic work with the same title, and his reply to David Strauss's Life of Jesus (Glaubwiirdigkeit der evange lischen Geschichte, 1837). He published at various times valuable contributions towards a history of rationalism—Vorgeschichte des Rationalismus (1853-62), Geschichte des Rationalismus (1865), i. and a number of essays connected with the history of theology and especially of apologetics. His views on inspiration were indicated in his work Die Propheten and ihre Weissagungen (186o), in his essay on the "Alte Inspirationslehre," in Deutsche Zeitschrift fur christliche Wissenschaft (185o), and in his Gesprache fiber die vornehmsten Glaubensfragen der Zeit (1846 ; 2nd ed., 1867).