BRETSCHNEIDER, KARL GOTTLIEB, was horn at Gersdorf, rith Feb. 1776. Having finished his preparatory studies he became a privat-docent, first at Leipsic, and after that at Wittenberg, where he read lectures in the university on logic and meta physics, and on the proof passages in the O. T. In 1806 he became pastor at Schneeberg, where he continued only two years, leaving it to become superintendent in Annaberg ; in 1816 he was ap pointed general superintendent at Gotha, which situation he retained till his death. He died 22d Jan. 1848. Bretschneider's literary activity was very great, and his published works belong to almost every department of sacred science. To the biblical scholar he is chiefly known by his Lexicon Manuaie Gr. Lat. in N. T., 2 vols. Svo, Lips. 1824, sec. ed. 1829, 3d 1840, 1 vol. ; his Lexict in interjy5. Gr.
V. T. maxime script. apocryph. spicilegiztm, Lips. 1805 ; and his Liber yesit Sirac. Gr. ad Alan codd. et verss. emend. et perpelzia annot. illustr., Regens burg, 1806. In 1820 he published Probabilia de
Ewing. et Epp. 7oannis indole et origine ; in which he endeavours to raise doubts as to the genuineness of these writings. This excited considerable sensa tion, and called forth a number of replies, which fully established the position he had sought to over turn, as he himself admits in the preface to the second edition of his Hana'buch der Dopaatik, where he says that he threw out doubts as to their genuine ness only for the sake of having the evidence of this more thoroughly established than it had been. It is not easy to define his position in relation to the different schools of theology among which his countrymen are distributed, as he sided wholly with no party. His orthodoxy, however, was of so cold and formal a type, and he admitted so many scepti cal positions in relation to the sacred books, that he must be ranked as inclining rather to the Rationalist than to the Evangelical party.—W. L. A.