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- Rothe Rousseau
- Theological ject
- Estimation.
- ROTHMANN (ROTTMANN), BERNHARD.
- JEAN JACQUES
- Rousseau Rowe THE NEW SCHAFF HERZOG 104 Warens at Annecy, and she
101 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Roewitha Rothe change produced in him, as though it were the en trance of a new spiritual spring. For a considerable time thereafter his letters were couched in the un natural mode of utterance in vogue among Pietists, and abounded in the bluntest expressions respecting everybody of a different opinion and all worldly pursuits. He even condemned all scientific treat ment of theology. The Evangelical attempts in the cause of church union merely aroused his ab horrence, and served only to enhance his inclina tion toward Roman Catholicism. He manifested special predilection for the quietistic mysticism of the extravagant Francis of Sales (q.v.). Although he then assured his distressed parents that he had won inward rest and blessedness, he nevertheless later admitted in retrospect that he had not been a happy Pietist, but had been without joy. Grad ually he felt the lack of satisfying, solid work at the Wittenberg Seminary, though he had often preached and studied much there, and, in the autumn of 1822, he left Wittenberg, not without satisfaction, to re turn home. Here, thanks to the good offices of Heubner, he was called to be chaplain to the Prus sian embassy at Rome. He now passed his second theological examination, was ordained at Berlin, married Louise von Bruck, a sister in law of Heub ner, and journeyed with her to Italy. He reached Rome early in 1824. What usually attracted people he regarded with indifference, de siring simply to serve his congregation faithfully, and thereby the kingdom of God. But
that body, the conscientious execu tion of this task was bound to enlarge his field of vision. The nucleus of the Prussian congregation at Rome comprised some finely cultivated Evan gelical families of the embassy, and a number of artists of idealistic taste. He soon discerned that Christianity was not to be presented before these circles in the form of a narrow minded Pietism. Not a few of the members, above all the highly talented, eager personality of Josias Bunsen (q.v.), counselor of the legation, evinced by their combi nation of a vital Christian intelligence with political, scientific, artistic, and other spiritual and secular interests, that the two do not exclude each other. Hence the Pietistic forms, foreign as they always were to Rothe's individuality, fell gradually away from his habit of life and thought. In his modesty, his inner devoutness, his fellowship with Christ, his preference for quiet, he had much in common with Pietism, and these he retained enduringly. His style of correspondence now became more natural, and his judgment of Pietism more and more critical. At the same time, being at the very center of Ro man Catholicism, he was radically cured of his pre dilection for that system, and perceived that a stanch ecclesiasticism still affords no warrant of Christian piety. Thus his own Christianity grew more liberal toward the world, and, stimulated by his official activity, he awakened more keenly to the need of scientific studies. Before conferences of cul tivated members of his congregation, in response to the request of some artists, he discussed topics in ecclesiastical history. This Roman sojourn, how ever, had also its dark sides. Rothe's wife ap
peared unable to bear the climate. Then the frequent changes in the constituency of the Prussian congregation rendered the fruits of his activity insecure. With increasing diffidence toward publicly disclosing his inmost mind, he began to doubt his qualification for a practical church career, and his desire for active scholarship grew apace. Under the circumstances a call to be professor at the theological seminary at Wittenberg in 1828 was gladly accepted, and this was followed by the appointment to be second director and ephor, 1832. In 1837 he became university preacher, and professor and director of the new seminary at Heidelberg. To be released from the latter office he accepted a call to Bonn in 1849. Feeling too much weighed down by the practical duties of preaching in connection with the public worship of the university, he returned to Heidelberg, 1854, where he now lectured on ecclesiastical history, exegesis, systematic theology, the life of Christ, encyclopedia, and, occasionally, on practical theology till his death. From the beginning of his independent theological research, his deepest interest turned to the scientific knowledge of the ideal truth of Christianity. But in distinction from the dialectics of Schleiermacher, which seemed to him too formal and abstract, he strove after a more replete speculation, rendering more justice to the realities Work in of the world and of historical Chris Exegesis tianity. Hence his theological studies and were applied, first, to Biblical exegesis History. and ecclesiastical history. His exegetical studies were taken up at Rome, and pursued with special zeal during the later period of his sojourn there, since Biblical writings formed the topics of discussion in the conferences of cultivated church members. This gave rise to Rothe's first literary publication, his monograph on Rom. v. 12 21, prepared at Ischia, and published under the title, Neuer Versuch einer Auslegung der Paulinischen Stelle Romer V., 12 ,21 (Wittenberg, 1836). However, purely exegetical interest was not very lively with him, and he published nothing further in scientific exegesis. Still, his official tasks at Wittenberg led him to produce edifying elucidations of Scripture; and his exposition of I John is one of the best of its kind, Der erste Brief Johannis (Wittenberg, 1878). His studies next turned to the historical field. Already at Breslau, after Neander had inspired him at Berlin to the academic vocation, he had devoted himself to studies in ecclesiastical history. At Rome association with the versatile and scholarly Bunsen gave him new impetus. Coincident with his own interest the Roman artists besought him for information on the history of Roman Catholicism. The reaction which then took place in his critical estimation of Romanism also occasioned the need of some independent historical examination on this topic. His deep study of the sources thus prepared him for the course of lectures on " Church Life " that he was pledged to deliver at Wittenberg, in which he treated the nature and history of the Christian religion and Church. Another fruit of this labor was his much noted work, Die Anfange der christlichen Kirehe and ihrer Ver Rothe Rousseau THE NEW SCHAFF HERZOG 102 fassung (1837). Inherent in the nature of all religions, he asserts, there is the radical impulse of self expression. In the Christian religion, the process of such manifestations has for its goal the consummation of the kingdom of God on earth, as promised by Christ. But the State, as the most comprehensive structure wrought by mind into matter, is the actual realization of all moral life, which, in its final perfection, must immanently involve religion. In contrast, the Church, by virtue of its intrinsic character, shall ever serve purely religious ends. Therefore the kingdom of God on earth can present itself only in the form of a perfected state or organism of states, wherefore the Church becomes gradually superfluous. For the present, however, the Church still has a lofty significance. The idea of the Church sprang from an internal necessity, and began to achieve its fulfilment. As a matter of fact, the formation of the Church followed soon after the destruction of Jerusalem, when the surviving apostles instituted the episcopate as an organic expedient for the outward unity of Christian fellowship. Incipiently, the idea of the Church was vaguely identified with this empirical Church. As all sorts of contingencies arose to make this identification less congruous, there developed, over against the heresies, with increasing certainty, the recognition of the papal Church of Rome. This fiction, however, was bound ere long to give rise to a contradietion resting fundamentally upon the fact that the Church, as a whole, is not the form of the Christian life in correspondence with it. For the first time was the question fundamentally involving the transition from Apostolic Christianity to the hierarchical Roman Catholic Church so definitely raised. In comparison with Neander's treatment of church history, whereby the inner life of the individual Christian personalities received a one sided emphasis, there was a distinct advance with Rothe, when he placed due importance upon the general development of Christianity in its social forms. A reciprocal defect appeared, however, in that, according to Rothe, the idea of the Church realized itself essentially only by the adoption of constitutional forms; and that this abstraction of a constitution did not appear to be evolved from the inner life of the Church, but was externally instituted by the apostles. In this view a reaction from his earlier admiration of Roman Catholicism can not be mistaken, while his thought of a gradual resolution of the Church into the State becomes clear in the light of his impressions in childhood, and his subsequent transition from narrow Pietism to the wider sphere of life at Rome. Rothe did not publish any further historical development of this view, and his lectures were published in fragmentary form, Vorlesungen fiber Kirchengeschichte (2 vols., Heidelberg, 1875 76). Rothe's first production in church history impelled him to a purely systematic work. Only then did he approach the task for which he was best fitted, by which he most amply developed his gifts. He sought to arrive at an explanation of his views on Christianity, Church, and State on the basis of the clear representation of the relation between the religious and the ethical. This was the purpose of his ethics. While he assigned dogmatics to historical theology, ethics, as the conclusive part of specu lative theology, was to unfold its subTheological ject only in accordance with the law Ethics. of logical thought. It was to take its point of departure from the consciousness of God; and this, contrary to Schleiermacher, from its objective content. Rothe thus proceeds deductively from God to the creation of the world as the necessary means whereby he is distinguishable, and from the infinite process of creation to its continuation in the ethical process, which subsists in the unity, fixed in the human mind, of personality and material nature. Inasmuch as this concept of the ethical appears in the threefold form of moral good, virtue, and duty, Rothe's ethics falls under three main heads. The first sets forth the ethical process, namely, the original unity of morality and religion; its disturbance by the evil which subsists in the predominance of the nature of sense over personality; the redemption from evil through the second Adam; the primarily religious, then moral efficacy of this redemption upon individual men, through the kingdom of God, first resolved in the form of a church and finally fulfilled in a Christian state organism; and the end of all things. Compared with this comprehensive thought outline of the first part, all else in his ethics, although containing many beautiful details, is like a superfluous appendix. Concerning the fundamental views of his religiousethical system in the first part, his effort to derive the entire organism of Christian truth by logical de duction from a single concept can not Estimation. be upheld. It proved itself incapable of logical conclusion, and led to the tendency of a pantheistic confusion of God and the world; of conceiving the divine and the moral in natural terms; of thinking of the spiritual as a mere product of matter; and of denying, in determinist fashion, all freedom of divine and human action. Yet this tendency was contradicted by Rothe's strong ethical and theistic temperament, as well as by his positive supernaturalism, such as he exhibited in his admirable 7.ur Dogmatik (Goths, 1863). This inconsistency occasioned many palpable contradictions and defects in his system. His identification of religion with morality, whence emanated his evidently erroneous ideas on the relation of Church and State, was also involved with a pantheistic inclination. A practical consequence of these views was his mode of participation during his closing years in the affairs of the State Church of Baden. In the liberation of culture and of its exponents from domination by the Church, he saw nothing short of an operation by his Savior. Therefore he believed that he was serving him best when he cooperated in the plan of introducing the congregational principle in constitutional polity, whereby cultivated laymen, with their " unconscious Christianity," were to be associated in congregational autonomy, and when by the " Protestant Union " (q.v.) Christianity became effectually emancipated from its ecclesiastical restrictions offensive as these were to the cultured. Thus Rothe though abhorring all partizan tactics, himself proved a Partizan. Finally,
103 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Rothe Rousseau it should be borne in mind that the defects in Rothe's ethics are, to some extent, involved with insoluble antinomies, and they are compensated in his work by superior merits; such as his dialectical adapta bility and his skill in the grouping of his matter, let alone his affluence of significant and useful ideas, even of elements of truth in his most vulnerable representations. F. SIEFTERT. BIBLIOGRAPHY: F. Nippold, Richard Rothe, 2 vols., Wit tenberg, 1873 74; A. Hauarath, Richard Rothe and seine Freunde, 2 vols., Berlin, 1902 08; J. Cropp, in Protes tantische Monatshefte, 1897, 1899; E. Aehelie, Dr. Richard Rothe, Gotha, 1869; W. Hbnig, Richard Rothe. Charak ter, Leben and Denken, Berlin, 1898; H. Bassermann. Richard Rothe als praktischer Theologe, Freiburg, 1899; 0. Fhigel, Richard Rothe als apekulativer Theologe, Lang ensalza, 1899; P. Mezger, Richard Rothe. Ein theo logisches Charakterbild, Berlin, 1899; K. Sell, in Theo logische Rundschau, 1899; H. Sp6rri, Zur Erinnerung an Richard Rothe, Hamburg, 1899; E. Troeliseh, Richard Rothe. Geddehtnisrede, Freiburg, 1899; R. Kern, Dr. Richard Rothe, Camel, 1904; L. Witte, Richard Rothe itber Jesus als Wunderthllter, Halle, 1907; J. Happel, Richard Rothes Lehre von der Kirche, Leipsie, 1909. ROTHMANN (ROTTMANN), BERNHARD. See MUENSTER, ANABAI TIsTs IN. ROTHSTEIN, rot'stain, JOHANN WILHELM: German Protestant; b. at Puhl, a village of Rhen ish Prussia, Mar. 19, 1853. He was educated at the universities of Bonn (Ph.D., 1877; lic. theol., 1878) and Halle, where he devoted himself to theology and Semitics (1872 78). He was a teacher in the gymnasium at Elberfeld until 1884 and at the girls' high school in Halle until 1889, when he was ap pointed associate professor of Old Testament exe gesis at the University of Halle, and in 1910 became professor in the same branch at Breslau. Theo logically he bases his work on a belief in Biblical revelation, and, though favoring earnest historical criticism, is opposed to rationalistic interpretations of the Old and New Testaments from the point of view of comparative religion. He has written: De chronographo Arabe anonymo qui Bodice Berolinensi SprengeKano tricesimo continetur (Bonn, 1877); Das Bundesbuch and die rehgionsgeschiehtliche Entwick lung Israels (Halle, 1888); Das Hohe Lied (1893); Der Gottesglaube im alters Israel and die religions geschichtliche Kritik (1900); Bilder aus der Geschichte des alters Bundes in gemeinverstondlicher Form, vol. i. (Erlangen, 1901); Die Genealogie des Konigs von Juda Jojachin and seiner Naclckommenschaft in 1 Chron. iii. 17 24 (Berlin, 1902); Geschichte and O, fen barung mit Bezug auf Israds Religion (Stuttgart, 1903); Juden and Samaritaner. Die grundlegende Scheidung von Judentum and Heidentum. Eine kritische Studie zum Buche Haggai and zur jiid ischen Geschichte im ersten nachexilischen Jahrhundert (Leipsic, 1908) ; Grundzuge des hebrdischen Rhythmus and seiner Formenbildung, nebst lyrischen Texten mit kritischem Kommentar (1909); Psalmentexte and der Text des Hohen Liedes (1909; reprinted from the Grundzvge des . . . Rhythmus); and Die Naehtge sichte des Sacharya (1910). He has translated into German W. R. Smith's The Old Testament in the Jewish Church (Freiburg, 1894) and S. R. Driver's Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (Berlin, 1896), and contributed Jeremiah and Ze phaniah to E. Kautzseh's Das Alte Testament (Frei burg, 1894; in the 3d ed., 1910, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Chronicles), the apocryphal portions of Daniel, as well as Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah to the same scholar's Apokryphen and Pseudepigraphen des Alters Testaments (1900), and Jeremiah and Ezekiel to R. Mttel's Biblia Hebraica (Leipsic, 1906). RODS, raus, FRANCIS: Puritan; b. at Dittisham (25 m. e. of Plymouth) in 1579; d. at Acton (7 m. w. of London) Jan., 1658 59. He was educated at Oxford (B.A., 1596 97), and the University of Leyden (1598 99); was a member of parliament during the reign of Charles I., of the Long Parliament, and others (1625 56); was appointed lord of parliament by Cromwell (1657); and became provost of Eton (1643 44). The Westminster Assembly appointed him one of its lay assessors (1643); and he was chairman of the committee for ordination of ministers after its organization (1643 44). In 1649 Rous went over to the Independents and served on the committee for the propagation of the Gospel, which framed an abortive scheme for a state church on the Congregational plan, revived without success by the Little Parliament of which he was speaker (1653). When that body dissolved itself, he was sworn on the protector's council of state. He was placed on the committee for the approbation of public preachers 1653 54, and with Cromwell on that of discussion of the kingship (1656). He was author of Psalms Translated into English Metre (1643; 1646), a version approved by the Westminster Assembly, authorized by parliament for general use, and adopted by the committee of estates in Scotland, where its popular use has continued till the present day. During a period of retirement from the Middle Temple to Landrake, Cornwall (1601 25), he wrote Meditations of hnstruoLion, of Exhortation, of Reproof (London, 1616); The. Arts of Happiness (1619); Diseases of the Time (1622); and Oyl of Scorpions (1623). His piety was of an intensely subjective kind, as illustrated in Mystical Marriage (1635), and Heavenly Academie (1638). A number of his works were collectively republished in Treatises and Meditations (London, 1656 57). BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. l Wood, Athena Oxoniensis, ed. P. Bliss, iii. 467, 4 vols., London, 1813 20; D. Neal, Hid. of the Puritans, ed. J. Toulmin, 5 vols., Bath, 1793 97; J. A. Alexander, Lives of the Speakers of the House of Commons, London, 1850; S. W. Duffield, English Hymns, p. 533, New York, 1886; W. A. Shaw, History of the English Church . . . 18/,0 60, 2 vols., London, 1900; Julian, Hymnology, pp. 918, 979, 1023; DNB, xlix. 318 317 (where many scattering references are given). ROUSSEAU, rus"s8', JEAN JACQUES: French deistic philosopher and author; b. at Geneva June 28, 1712; d. at Ermenonville (28 m. n.e. of Paris) July 2, 1778. His mother died at his birth, and his father, a dissipated and violent tempered man, paid little attention to the son's training, and finally deserted him. The latter developed a passion for reading, with a special fondness for Plutarch's Lives. Apprenticed first to a notary and then to a coppersmith, he ran away (1728) to escape the rigid discipline, and, after wandering for several days, he fell in with Roman Catholic priests at Consignon in Savoy, who turned him over to Madame de Rousseau Rowe THE NEW SCHAFF HERZOG 104 Warens at Annecy, and she sent him to an educational institution at Turin. Here he duly abjured Protestantism, and next served in various households, in one of which he was charged with theft. After more wanderings he was at Chamb6ry (1730), whither Madame de Warens had removed. In her household he spent eight years diverting himself in the enjoyment of nature, the study of music, the reading of the English, German, and French philosophers and chemistry, pursuing the study of mathematics and Latin, and enjoying the play house and opera. He next spent eighteen months at Venice as secretary of the French ambassador, Comte de Montaignu (1744 45). Up to this time, when he was thirty nine, his life, the details of which he publishes in his Confessions (Geneva, 1782; Eng. transl., The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, London, 1891), may be styled as subterranean. He now returned to Paris, where his opera Les Muses galantes failed, copied music, and was secretary of Madame Dupin. Here he came into association with Diderot, Grimm, D'Alembert, Holbach, and Madame d'1Jpinay, and was admitted as a contributor to the Encyclopedie (see ENCYCLOPEDISTS) ; and his brilliant gifts of entertainment, reckless manner, and boundless vanity attracted attention. With the Discours sur le sciences et les arts (Paris, 1750), a prize essay in which he set forth the paradox of the superiority of the savage state, he proclaimed his gospel of " back to nature." His operetta Devin du village (1752) met with great success. His second sensational writing appeared: Discours sur l'inegalite parmi les hommes (1753), against the inequalities of society. His fame was then assured. In 1754 he revisited Geneva, was received with great acclamation, and called himself henceforth " citizen of Geneva." In 1756, upon invitation of Madame d'hpinay, he retired to a cottage (afterward " The Hermitage ") in the woods of. Montmorency, where in the quiet of nature he expected to spend his life; but domestic troubles, his violent passion for Countess d'Houdetot, and his morbid mistrust and nervous excitability, which lost him his friends, induced him to change his residence to a chateau in the park of the duke of Luxembourg, Montmorency (1758 62). His famous works appeared during this period: Lettre d d'Alenlbert (Amsterdam, 1758); Julie ou la nouvelle Heloase (1761); Du contrat social (Amsterdam, 1762; Paris, 1795; Eng. transl., The Social Contract, 2 vols., New York, 1893, new transl., 1902); and 4mile ou de l'education (Amsterdam, 1762; Eng. transl., Emilius; or an Essay on Education., 2 vols., London, 1763, and again, 1895). The last named work was ordered to be burned by the French parliament and his arrest was ordered; but he fled to Neuchatel, then within the jurisdiction of Prussia. Here he wrote his Lettres ecrites de la Montagne (Amsterdam, 1762), in which, with reference to the Geneva constitution, he advocated the freedom of religion against the Church and police. Driven thence by peasant attacks (Sept., 1765), he returned to the Isle St. Pierre in the Lake of Bienne. The government of Berne ordered him out of its territory, and he accepted the asylum offered him by David Hume in England (Jan., 1766). But his morbid misanthropy, now goaded to an insane sense of being persecuted, made him suspicious of plots, and led him to quarrel with his friends for not making his opponents their own enemies, and he fled to France (1767). After wandering about and depending on friends he was permitted to return to Paris (1770), where he finished the Confessions begun in England, and produced many of his best stories. Here he copied notes, and studied music and botany. His dread of secret enemies grew upon his imagination, until he was glad to accept an invitation to retire to Ermenonville (1778), where his death came suddenly. Rousseau was possessed with an overmastering love of nature, and reacted against the artificiality and corruption of the social customs and institutions of the time. He was a keen thinker, and was equipped with the weapons of the philosophical century and with an inspiring eloquence. To these qualities were added a pronounced egotism, selfseeking, and an arrogance that led to bitter antagonism against his revolutionary views and sensitive personality, the reaction against which resulted in a growing misanthropy. Error and prejudice in the name of philosophy, according to him, had stifled reason and nature, and culture, as he found it, had corrupted morals. In Smile he presents the ideal citizen and the means of training the child for the State in accordance with nature, even to a sense of God. This " nature gospel " of education, as Goethe called it, was the inspiration, beginning with Pestalozzi, of world wide pedagogical methods. The most admirable part in this is the creed of the vicar of Savoy, in which, in happy phrase, Rousseau shows a true, natural susceptibility to religion and to God, whose omnipotence and greatness are published anew every day. The Social Contract, on the text that all men are born free and equal, regards the State as a contract in which individuals surrender none of their natural rights, but rather agree for the protection of them. Most remarkable in this projected republic was the provision to banish aliens to the state religion and to punish dissenters with death. The Social Contract became the text book of the French Revolution, and Rousseau's theories as protests bore fruit in the frenzied bloody orgies of the Commune as well as in the rejuvenation of France and the history of the entire Western world. Among many editions of Rousseau's complete works are those by P. A. Du Peyron (35 vols., Geneva and Paris, 1782) followed by ('uvres posthumes (12 vols., 1782 83); and by V. D. Musset Pathay, with biography and notes (26 vols., Paris, 1823 27). His Lettres inMites, ed. H. de Rothschild, appeared Paris, 1892. Also see DEISM, II., § 4. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Recent issues of some of the works of Rousseau in English are: Emile, or, Treatise on Education, London, 1895; The Social Contract; or, Principles of Political Right, ib. 1902; Confessions, 2 vols., ib. 1907; Morals, ib. 1908; Humane Philosophy, Maxims and Principles, selected . . by Frederika Macdonald, ib. 1908. Studies of Rousseau's life and works are: J. Morley, J. J. Rousseau, 2 vols., London, 1888; A. J. BarruelBeauvert, Vie de J. J. Rousseau, ib. 1789; V. D. MussetPathay, Histoire de to vie et des ouvrapes de J. J. Rousseau, 2 vols., Paris, 1822; M. G. Streckeisen, J. J. Rousseau, ses arms et ses ennemis, 2 vols., ib. 1865; F. Broeker Directory: schaff -> encyc -> encyc10 encyc -> Xethodists Japan, and maintains a large number of schools and seminaries, and one college. In recent years it has made some modifications. The general conference of Aug encyc -> Poems, Anonymous Poiret encyc -> Associate professor of church history princeton theological seminary baker book house encyc10 -> Semitic Lanrnsses encyc -> Associate professor of church history princeton theological seminary baker book house encyc -> Associate professor of church history princeton theological seminary baker book house Share with your friends:
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