HAGENBACH, Karl Rudolf (1801-1874), distinguished as a church historian and as an expounder of the so-called “Vermittelungstheologie,” or mediation theology of Germany, was born March 4, 1801, at Basel, where his father, a man of considerable talent and scientific repute, was a practising physician. His preliminary education was received at a Pestalozzian school, and afterwards at the gymnasium, whence in due course he passed to the newly reorganized local university. Carefully brought up within a church in which the strictest orthodoxy still continued to hold undisputed sway, familiar at the same time from boyhood with his father’s expressions of approval of the principles of the French Revolution, himself of an ardent, sympathetic, inquiring, and devout temperament, he early devoted himself to theological studies and to the service of the church, while at the same time cherishing and developing broad “humanistic” tendencies which found expression in many ways and especially in an enthusiastic admiration for the writings of Herder. The years 1820-23 were spent first at Bonn, where Lücke exerted a powerful influence on the formation of his opinions, and afterwards at Berlin, where Schleiermacher, and still more Neander, became permanently his masters. Returning in 1823 to Basel, where De Wette had recently been appointed to a theological chair, he distinguished himself greatly by his “liabilitations-schrift” or trial-dissertation, entitled Observationes historico-hermeneuticce circa Origenis methodum interpretavdoe sacras Scripturoe; in the following year he became professor extraordinarius, and in 1829 professor ordinarius of theology. Apart from his special academic labours during many years in connexion with the history of dogma and of the church ...