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RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA 8chlatter
from the Moravians, and entered the University of Halle, where he plunged into Kantian and Greek philosophy, though even at this time his lack of agreement with Kant's system was clear. In 1789 he was compelled, by lack of funds, to withdraw from Halle, and after a year of private study at Drossen, near Frankfort-on-the-Oder, he passed his first theological examination. He became a private tutor in the family of Count Dohna at Schlobitten in West Prussia, where he learned the ways of polite society. Here, too, in his fragment on the freedom of the will he argued skilfully on the deterministic side, while the sermons of this period stress Christianity as the source of lofty ethical life. After two and a half years, however, a dispute connected with his tutorial duties led to a friendly severance of his relations with Dohna. After another sojourn at Drossen, Schleiermacher, in the autumn of 1793, became a member of the Gedike seminary at Berlin, and also taught at the Kornmesser orphan asylum; but in the following year he accepted the post of assistant pastor at Landsberg-on-the-Warthe, where he was ordained. Here, while diligently discharging his pastoral duties, he translated the sermons of Hugh Blair of Edinburgh and of the English preacher John Fawcett (qq.v.). In June, 1795, the senior pastor died, and Schleiermacher was appointed Reformed preacher at the Charitk in Berlin.
Schleiermacher's six years (1796-1802) as preacher at the Charit6 were rich alike in inspiration and in struggle. Here in Berlin the Enlightenment (q.v.) was still in full tide, but with its increasing shallowness enthusiasm for Romanti-
c. First cism (q.v.) steadily gained. When, in Berlin 1797, Friedrich Schlegel visited Berlin,
Period. Schleiermacher made his acquaintance, and under his inspiration wrote his Red- fiber die Religion (anonymous, Berlin, 1799) and Monolog- (1800). In Feb., 1799, his literary relations were interrupted by his sojourn at Pots dam as court chaplain, but on his return to Berlin in May he resumed his pen. The work which fol lowed the Monolog--the Verlraute Brieje fiber Schlegels Lucinde (also anonymous; Ldbeck, 1800) -was less happy than his former work, and even this plea in behalf of the much-blamed romanticist could not prevent the breach that was already threaten ing his friendship with Schlegel. At this juncture Schleiermacher's old patron, the court preacher Friedrich Samuel Gottfried Sack (q.v.), who had long been sorely troubled by the young preacher's eloquent defense of Spinozism, offered him a new position, and in 1802 he went into his " exile " as court preacher at Stolpe.In estimating the literary results of Schleierma,cher's first years in Berlin, it is to be noted primarily that his Reden fiber die Religion shows the close relation of its author to the ro-
3. The mantic movement. In opposition to
of man's spiritual life; and to this is added Spinoza's tenet that the finite is comprised in and sustained by the infinite. The influence of Leibnitz is visible in the declaration that the life of the universe is mirrored in each individual, and there is recognized Schelling's poetic and philosophic interpretation of nature. The first discourse treats of the necessity of a defense of religion and of the reasons why religion is despised, and the second develops the basal definitions of the essence of religion. This is neither metaphysical interpretation of the world, nor moralistic legislation, nor a union of the two, but " taste and feeling for the infinite," based on apperception and feeling. Apperception presents the universe as a sum of free objects, unfettered by any system, among which each religious person may choose what is best adapted to him; and feeling is religion as the consciousness of the inward change of the individual through such apperception. Only in religion are apperception and feeling united, and their separation shows that the climax of religious experience, the union of the soul with the universe, has been missed, although action does not immediately proceed from them, even while they serve as the permanent basal determination of all action. In the third discourse the author prophesies the speedy passing of the supremacy of the arid rationalism which impeded the development of religious feeling. In the fourth he set forth his theories of the Church. True religious fellowship knew no distinction between clergy and laity; and religion as a whole was realized only in all religions together. The great churches, with their rigid organization and their connection with the State, had fallen far short of this ideal, and were rather training-schools for those who truly sought religion than real associations of pious souls; and the invisible communions severed from the great Church stood nearest to the realization of the ideal. The fifth discourse considered the theory of religion in general. The multiplicity of religions is due to the infinite essence of religion and the finite nature of man, and true religion exists only in the form of a specific type of belief in which the religious life is individualized. So-called natural religion is a mere abstraction, and the differences between positive religions is qualitative, not based on the different quantities of their underlying conceptions. In each of these religions there is a definite theory of the universe which in each case alters the complexion of the whole. In Christianity the cardinal ideas are the corruption and the redemption of man, with history as the stage of action. At the same time, Christianity does not claim to be the final form of all religion, and could a better be found, Christianity would not oppose it.
The Red- exercised an influence more lasting than immediate, but ultimately modified nineteenthcentury theology more profoundly than any other book. It sharply stressed the concept of autonomy in religion, and thus gave a certain steadiness of development amid the swiftly changing and mutually destructive tendencies of theology; but, on the other hand, the author failed entirely to vindicate the practical character of Christianity, and sadly underestimated its historic aspects.