Schleiermacher, Friedrich°
SCHLEIERMACHER, FRIEDRICH°
SCHLEIERMACHER, FRIEDRICH ° (1766–1834), German theologian and preacher. The young Schleiermacher was an admirer of Henriette *Herz and frequented the salons of Berlin. He answered David *Friedlaender's audacious Sendschreiben an Probst Teller (1799) by advocating that Jews, as individuals, be granted complete emancipation in order to save the Church from contamination by insincere converts seeking equality. In his Reden ueber die Religion (1799; On Religion, 1955), he contended that Judaism was a dead religion, the essence of which lay in God and His chosen people. This historical dialogue, however, had ceased abruptly with the fall of the Jewish state; thus Judaism was not a true religion but rather a political body. Equating revelation with religious experience, he placed the Old Testament in a very subordinate position in relation to the New. On the other hand Schleiermacher, a powerful preacher, exerted a decisive influence on the style of L. *Zunz and other Jewish preachers of the era. Occasionally he attended the synagogue to listen to the young preachers, making comments to them afterward.
bibliography:
F. Schleiermacher, Briefe bei Gelegenheit der politisch-theologischen Aufgabe und des Sendschreibens juedischer Hausvaeter von einem Prediger ausserhalb Berlins (1799); A. Altmann, in: ylbi, 6 (1961), 3–60; idem, in: Studies in 19th Century Jewish Intellectual History (1964), 72f.; W. Dilthey, Leben Schleiermachers (1966); H. Liebeschutz, Das Judentum im deutschen Geschichtsbild von Hegel bis Max Weber (1967), index. add. bibliography: F. Schleiermacher, Kritische Gesamtausgabe (1985– ); M. Wolfes, in: Aschkenas, 14:2 (2004), 485–510.
[Andreas Kennecke (2nd ed.)]