Philip Schaff

Philip Schaff

Philip Schaff (January 1, 1819 – October 20, 1893), was a Swiss-born, German-educated Protestant theologian and a historian of the Christian church, who, after his education, lived and taught in the United States.

Biography

He was born in Chur, Switzerland, and was educated at the gymnasium of Stuttgart, and at the universities of Tübingen, Halle and Berlin, where he was successively influenced by Baur and Schmid, by Tholuck and Julius Müller, by David Strauss and, above all, Neander. At Berlin, in 1841, he took the degree of B.D., and passed examinations for a professorship. He then traveled through Italy and Sicily as tutor to Baron Krischer. In 1842 he was Privatdozent in the University of Berlin, where he lectured on exegesis and church history. In 1843 he was called to become professor of church history and Biblical literature in the German Reformed Theological Seminary of Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, then the only seminary of that church in America.

On his journey he stayed in England and met Edward Pusey and other Tractarians. His inaugural address on The Principle of Protestantism, delivered in German at Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1844, and published in German with an English version by John Williamson Nevin was a pioneer work in English in the field of symbolics (that is, the authoritative ecclesiastical formulations of religious doctrines in creeds or confessions). This address and the "Mercersburg Theology" which he taught seemed too pro-Catholic to some, and he was charged with heresy. But, at the synod at York in 1845, he was unanimously acquitted.

Schaff's broad views strongly influenced the German Reformed Church, through his teaching at Mercersburg, through his championship of English in German Reformed churches and schools in America, through his hymnal (1859), through his labours as chairman of the committee which prepared a new liturgy, and by his edition (1863) of the Heidelberg Catechism. His History of the Apostolic Church (in German, 1851; in English, 1853) and his History of the Christian Church (7 vols., 1858-1890), opened a new period in American study of ecclesiastical history.

In 1854, he visited Europe, representing the American German churches at the ecclesiastical diet at Frankfort and at the Swiss pastoral conference at Basel. He lectured in Germany on America, and received the degree of D.D. from Berlin.

In consequence of the ravages of the American Civil War the theological seminary at Mercersburg was closed for a while and so in 1863 Dr. Schaff became secretary of the Sabbath Committee (which fought the “continental Sunday”) in New York City, and held the position till 1870. In 1865 he founded the first German Sunday School in Stuttgart. In 1862-1867 he lectured on church history at Andover.

Schaff was a member of the Leipzig Historical Society, the Netherland Historical Society, and other historical and literary societies in Europe and America. He was one of the founders, and honorary secretary, of the American branch of the Evangelical Alliance, and was sent to Europe in 1869, 1872, and 1873 to arrange for the general conference of the Alliance, which, after two postponements on account of the Franco-Prussian War, was held in New York in October 1873. Schaff was also, in 1871, one of the Alliance delegates to the emperor of Russia to plead for the religious liberty of his subjects in the Baltic provinces.

He became a professor at Union Theological Seminary, New York City in 1870 holding first the chair of theological encyclopedia and Christian symbolism till 1873, of Hebrew and the cognate languages till 1874, of sacred literature till 1887, and finally of church history, till his death. He also served as president of the committee that translated the American Standard Version of the Bible, though he died before it was published in 1901.

His History of the Christian Church resembled Neander's work, though less biographical, and was pictorial rather than philosophical. He also wrote biographies, catechisms and hymnals for children, manuals of religious verse, lectures and essays on Dante, etc. He translated Johann Jakob Herzog's Real-Encyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche into English.

Working with the Evangelical Alliance and the Chicago (1893) World's Parliament of Religions, and in Germany, through the monthly Kirchenfreund, he strove earnestly to promote Christian unity and union. It was his hope that the pope would abandon the doctrine of infallibility and undertake the reunion of Christianity. He recognized that he was a “mediator between German and Anglo-American theology and Christianity.”

His son, David Schley Schaff (born in 1852), was professor of church history in Lane Theological Seminary from 1897 to 1903, and after 1903 in Western Theological Seminary at Allegheny, Pa.. He wrote a Commentary on the Book of Acts (1882) and a Life of Philip Schaff (1897). Another work is his Through Bible Lands: Notes of Travel in Egypt, the Desert and Palestine of 1878.

Works

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Philip Schaff

• Schaff, Philip. History of the Christian Church in 8 volumes.
• Schaff, Philip. 'A Library of Religious Poetry. A collection of The Best Religious Poems of all Ages and Tongues'. London etc. 1881.
• Schaff, Philip. Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical notes, volume I, volume II and volume III
• Schaff, Philip. The Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches
• The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. Schaff edited the European Herzog encyclopedia for an American audience. This is a revision of that work.
• Ante-Nicene Fathers and two series of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers in 38 volumes total. Edited by Schaff et al.
• Philip Schaff's Letter book, private correspondence from June 2, 1868 to August 26, 1881.

See also

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Philip Schaff on Luther's Bible

• Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge

References

•  "Schaff, Philip". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911. 
•  "Schaff, Philip". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1900. 

Bibliography

• Shriver, George H. (1987). Philip Schaff: Christian Scholar and Ecumenical Prophet. Mercer University Press. ISBN 0-86554-234-1
• Pranger, Gary K. (1997). Philip Schaff (1819-1893): Portrait of an Immigrant Theologian. Peter Lang Publishing. ISBN 0-8204-2847-7
• Graham, Stephen R. (1995). Cosmos in the Chaos: Philip Schaff's Interpretation of Nineteenth-Century American Religion. Wm. B. Eerdmans-Lightning Source. ISBN 0-8028-0841-7
• Gross, Ernie. This Day in Religion. New York: Neil-Schuman Publishers, 1990. ISBN 1-55570-045-4.