SEMLER, Johann Salomo (1725-1791), ecclesiastical historian and critic, sometimes called “the father of German rationalism” (see Rationalism), was born at Saalfeld in Thuringia on 18th December 1725. He was the son of a clergyman in poor circumstances, and had to fight his way in the world solely by his own talents. He grew up amidst Pietistic surroundings, which powerfully influenced him his life through, though he was never spiritually or intellectually a Pietist. As a boy he showed the omnivorous appetite for books which was characteristic of his later life. In his seventeenth year he entered the university of Halle, where he became the disciple, afterwards the assistant, and at last the literary executor of the orthodox rationalistic Professor Baumgarten. In 1749 he accepted the position of editor, with the title of professor, of the Coburg official Gazette, with leisure to pursue historical and scientific studies. But the next year he was invited to Altdorf as professor of philology and history, and six months later became a professor of theology in Halle. After the death of Baumgarten (1757) Semler became the head of the theological faculty of his university, and the fierce opposition which his writings and lectures provoked only helped to increase his fame as a professor. His popularity continued undiminished for more than twenty years, until 1779. In that year he came forward with a reply to the Wolfenbüttel Fragments (see Reimarus) and to Bahrdt’s confession of faith, a step which was interpreted by the extreme rationalists as a revocation of his own rationalistic position. Even the Prussian Government, which favoured Bahrdt, made Semler painfully feel its displeasure at this new but really not inconsistent aspect of his position. But, though Semler was ...really not inconsistent with himself in attacking the views of Reimarus and Bahrdt, as a comparison of his works prior and subsequent to 1779 with those in question shows, his popularity began from that year to decline, and towards the end of his life he felt painfully the necessity of emphasizing the apologetic and conservative value of true historical inquiry. With more justification, perhaps, might his defence of the notorious edict of Wöllner (1788), the cultus minister, be cited as a sign of the decline of his powers and of an unfaithfulness to his principles. He died at Halle on 14th
March 1791, worn out by his prodigious labours, embittered by his desertion, and disappointed at the issue of his work.
Sender’s importance in the history of theology and the human mind is that of a critic of Biblical and ecclesiastical documents and of the history of dogmas. He was not a philosophical thinker or theologian, though he insisted, more or less confusedly, and yet with an energy and persistency before unknown, on certain distinctions of great importance when properly worked out and applied, c.g., the distinction between religion and theology, that between private personal beliefs and public historical creeds, and that between the local and temporal and the permanent elements of historical religion. His great work was that of the critic. He was the first to reject with sufficient proof the equal value of the Old and the New Testaments, the uniform authority of all parts of the Bible, the divine authority of the traditional canon of Scripture, the inspiration and supposed correctness of the text of the Old and New Testaments, and, generally, the identification of revelation with Scripture. Though to some extent anticipated by the English deist Thomas Morgan, Semler was the first to take due note of and use for critical purposes the opposition between the Judaic and anti-Judaic parties of the early church. He led the way in the task of discovering the origin of the Gospels, the Epistles, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Apocalypse. He revived previous doubts as to the direct Pauline origin of the Epistle to the Hebrews, called in question Peter’s authorship of the first epistle, and referred the second epistle to the end of the 2d century. He wished to remove the Apocalypse altogether from the canon. In textual criticism Semler pursued further the principle of classifying MSS. in families, adopted by R. Simon and Bengel. Though he lacked almost every qualification of the true church historian, Semler did the work of a pioneer in many periods and in several departments of ecclesiastical history. Tholuck pronounces him “the father of the history of doctrines” and Baur " the first to deal with that history from the true critical standpoint.” At the same time, it is admitted by all that he was nowhere more than a pioneer. Baur’s description of his work in one department of ecclesiastical history is true of his work generally. “His writings on the history of dogma resemble a fallow-field waiting to be cultivated or a building-site on which, underneath refuse and ruins, lie the materials in chaotic confusion for a new edifice. The consequence was that as he was always occupied in preliminary labours, he brought nothing to even partial completion; and, though his general critical standpoint was correct, in its application to details his criticism could only be regarded as extremely bold and arbitrary.”
Tholuck gives 171 as the number of Sender’s works, of which only two reached a second edition, and none is now read for its own sake. Amongst the chief are— De demoniacis (Halle, 1760, 4th ed. 1779), Selecta capita historiae ecclesiasticae (3 vols., Halle, 1767-69), Von freier Untersuchung des Kanon (Halle, 1771-72), Apparatus ad liberalem N. T. interpretationem (1767; ad V. T., 1773), Institutio ad doctrinam Christ. liberaliter discendam (Halle, 1774), Ueber historische, gesellschaftliche, und moralische Religion der Christen (1786), and his autobiography, Semler's Lebensbeschreibung, von ihm selbst abgefasst (Halle, 1781-82).
For estimates of Semler's labours, see Gass, Gesch. der prοt. Dogmatik (Berlin, 1854-67); Dorner, Gesch. der prot. Theol. (Munich, 1867); Tholuck, art. in Herzog's Real-Encyklopädie ; Hilgenfeld, Einleitung in das Neue Test. (Leipsic, 1875); Baur, Epochen der kirchlichen Geschichtschreibung (1852); and Ritsehl, Gesch. des Pietismus (Bonn, 1880-84).
[1,015 words — estimated reading time: 6 minutes]