MEANDER, JOHANN AlIGUST Wilarmat, by far the greatest of ecclesiastical histo rians. was born at G6ttingen, Jan. 16, 1789, of Jewish parentage. His name prior to baptism was David Mendel. By the mother's side, he was related to the eminent phil osopher and philanthropist Mendelssohn (q.v.). He received his early education at the 3ohanneum in Hamburg, and had for companions, Varuhagen von Ense, Chainisso the poet; Wilhelm Neumann, Noodt, and Sieveking. Already the abstract, lofty, and pure genius of Neander was beginning to show itself. Plato and Plutarch were his favorite classics as a boy; and he was profoundly stirred by Schleiermacher's famous Discourses on Religion (1799). Finally, in 1806, lie publicly renounced Judaism, and was baptized, adopting, in allusion to the religious change which he had experienced, the name of Neander (Gr. neos, new; oiler, a man), and taking his Christian names from several of his friends. His sisters and brothers, and later his mother also, followed his example. lie now proceeded to Halle, where he studied theology with wonderful ardor and suc cess under Sehleiermacher, and concluded his academic course at his native town of GOttingen, wheit Planck was then in the zenith of his reputation as a church historian. In 1811 he took up his residence at Heidelberg university as a privat-docent; in 1812 he was appointed there extraordinary professor of theology; and in the following year was called to the newly established university of Berlin as professor of church history. Here he labored till his death, July 14.1850. Neander enjoyed immense celebrity as a lecturer. Students flocked to him not only from all parts of Germany, but from the most distant Protestant countries. Many Roman Catholics, even, were among his auditors, and it is said that there is hardly a great preacher in Germany who is not more or less penetrated with his ideas. His character, religiously considered, is of so noble a Christian type that it calls for special notice. Ardently and profoundly devotional, sympathetic, glad-hearted, profusely benevolent, and without a shadow of selfishness resting on his soul, lie inspired universal reverence, and was himself, by the mild and attractive sanctity of his life, a more powerful argument on behalf of Christianity than even his writings themselves. Perhaps no professor was ever so much loved by his students as Neander. He used to give the poorer ones tickets to his lectures, and to
supply them with clothes and money. The greater portion of what he made by his books, he bestowed upon missionary, Bible, and other societies, and upon hospitals. As a Christian scholar and thinker, he ranks among the first names in modern times, and is believed to have contributed more than any other single individual to the overthrow, on the one side, of that anti-historical rationalism, and on the other of that dead Lutheran formalism, from both of which the religious life of Germany had so long suffered. To the delineation of the development of historical Christianity. he brings one of the broad est, one of the most sagacious (in regard to religious matters), one of the most impartial yet generous and sympathetic intellects. His conception of church history as the record and portraiture of all forms of Christian thought and life, and the skill with which, by means of his sympathy with all of these, and his extraordinary erudition, he elicits, in his Eirehengeschichte, the varied phenomena of a strictly Christian nature, have placed him far above any of his predecessors. Meander's works, in the order of time, are: Ueber den Kaiser Julianus and sein Zeitalter (Leip. 1812); Der Heil. Bernhard, and min Zeitalter (Berl. 1813); Genetische Entwickclung der vornehmsten Gnostischen 8ysteme (Berl. 1818); Der Heil. Crysostomus and die Kirche besonders des Orients, in dessen Zeitalter (2 vole. Berl. 1821-22; 3d ed. 1849); Denkviirdigkeiten sus der Geschichte des Christenthunis and des Chthtlichen Lebens (3 vols. Berl. 1822; 3d ed. 1845-46); AMig720s1k218, Geist des Ter tallianus and Einleitnng in (lessen Schriften (Berl. 1826); Allgemeine Geschichte der Chtht lichen Religion and Kirche (6 vole. Hanib. 1825-52); Gesclachte der Pflanzung and Leitung der Eire& (lurch die A postel (2 vols. }Iamb. 1832-33; 4th ed. 1847); Das Leben jesu Christi in seinem geschichtlichen Zusammenhange, written as a reply to Strauss's work (Hamb. 1837; 5th ed. 1853); Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen, published by Jacobi (Berl. 1851); Geschichie der Christlichen Dogmen, also published by Jacobi (1856). The majority of these works, including the most important, have been translated into English, and form more than a dozen volumes of Bohn's "Standard Library."