Philip Schaff
Philip Schaff (January 1, 1819-1893), was an American theologian and church historian.
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. He then traveled through Italy and Sicily as tutor to Baron KriScher. In 1842 he was Privatdozent in the University of Berlin, and 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 six months1 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 JW Nevin was a pioneer work in English in the field of symbolics. 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.
In consequence of the ravages of the civil war the theological seminary at Mercersburg was closed for a while and so in 1863 Dr. Schaff became secretary of the Sabbath Committee in New York City, and held the position till 1870. 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.
His History of the Christian Church, already mentioned, resembled Neander's work, though less biographical, and was pictorial rather than philosophical. He wrote, besides, biographies, catechisms and hymnals for children, manuals of religious verse, lectures and essays on Dante, etc.
His son, David Schley Schaff (1852-?), was professor of church history in Lane Theological Seminary in 1897-1903, 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 (New York, 1897).
This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
1. According to the , Schaff spent 2 months in England rather than 6.
Bibliography
- History of the Christian Church
- Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical notes
- Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches
