Carl Friedrich Bahrdt (1741-1792), a kind of raw Teutonic Voltaire,
and the most popularly influential German freethinker of his age. In
all he is said to have published a hundred and twenty-six books
and tracts, [1342] thus approximating to Voltaire in quantity if
not in quality. Theological hatred has so pursued him that it is
hard to form a fair opinion as to his character; but the record
runs that he led a somewhat Bohemian and disorderly life, though a
very industrious one. While a preacher in Leipzig in 1768 he first
got into trouble--"persecution" by his own account; "disgrace for
licentious conduct," by that of his enemies. In any case, he was
at this period quite orthodox in his beliefs. [1343] That there was
no serious disgrace is suggested by the fact that he was appointed
Professor of Biblical Antiquities at Erfurt; and soon afterwards, on
the recommendation of Semler and Ernesti, at Giessen (1771). While
holding that post he published his "modernized" translation of the
New Testament, done from the point of view of belief in revelation,
following it up by his New Revelations of God in Letters and Tales
(1773), which aroused Protestant hostility. After teaching for a time
in a new Swiss "Philanthropin"--an educational institution on Basedow's
lines--he obtained a post as a district ecclesiastical superintendent
in the principality of Türkheim on the Hardt; whereafter he was enabled
to set up a "Philanthropin" of his own in the castle of Heidesheim,
near Worms. The second edition of his translation of the New Testament,
however, aroused Catholic hostility in the district; the edition was
confiscated, and he found it prudent to make a tour in Holland and
England, only to receive, on his return, a missive from the imperial
consistory declaring him disabled for any spiritual office in the Holy
German Empire. Seeking refuge in Halle, he found Semler grown hostile;
but made the acquaintance of Eberhard, with the result of abandoning
the remains of his orthodox faith. Henceforth he regarded Jesus, albeit
with admiration, as simply a great teacher, "like Moses, Confucius,
Sokrates, Semler, Luther, and myself"; [1344] and to this view he gave
effect; in the third edition of his New Testament translation, which
was followed in 1782 by his Letters on the Bible in Popular Style
(Volkston), and in 1784 by his Completion (Ausführung) of the Plan
and Aim of Jesus in Letters (1784), and his System of Moral Religion
(1787). More and more fiercely antagonized, he duly retaliated on the
clergy in his Church and Heretic Almanack (1781); and after for a time
keeping a tavern, he got into fresh trouble by printing anonymous
satires on the religious edict of 1788, directed against all kinds
of heresy, [1345] and was sentenced to two years' imprisonment in a
fortress--a term reduced by the king to one year. Thereafter he ended
not very happily his troublous life in Halle in 1792.
The weakest part of Bahrdt's performance is now seen to be
his application of the empirical method of the early theological
rationalists, who were wont to take every Biblical prodigy as a merely
perverted account of an incident which certainly happened. That
method--which became identified with the so-called "rationalism"
of Germany in that age, and is not yet discarded by rationalizing
theologians--is reduced to open absurdity in his hands, as when
he makes Moses employ fireworks on Mount Sinai, and Jesus feed the
five thousand by stratagem, without miracle. But it was not by such
extravagances that he won and kept a hearing throughout his life. It
is easy to see on retrospect that the source of his influence as a
writer lay above all things in his healthy critical ethic, his own
mode of progression being by way of simple common sense and natural
feeling, not of critical research. His first step in rationalism
was to ask himself "how Three Persons could be One God"--this while
believing devoutly in revelation, miracles, the divinity of Jesus,
and the Atonement. Under the influence of a naturalist travelling
in his district, he gave up the orthodox doctrine of the Atonement,
feeling himself "as if new-born" in being freed of what he had learned
to see as a "pernicious and damnable error." [1346] It was for such
writing that he was hated and persecuted, despite his habitual eulogy
of Christ as "the greatest and most venerable of mortals." His offence
was not against morals, but against theology; and he heightened the
offence by his vanity.
Bahrdt's real power may be inferred from the fury of some of his
opponents. "The wretched Bahrdt" is Dr. Pusey's Christian account
of him. Even F. C. Baur is abusive. The American translators
of Hagenbach, Messrs. Gage and Stuckenberg, have thought fit to
insert in their chapter-heading the phrase "Bahrdt, the Theodore
Parker of Germany." As Hagenbach has spoken of Bahrdt with special
contempt, the intention can be appreciated; but the intended
insult may now serve as a certificate of merit to Bahrdt. Bishop
Hurst solemnly affirms that "What Jeffreys is to the judicial
history of England, Bahrdt is to the religious history of German
Protestantism. Whatever he touched was disgraced by the vileness
of his heart and the Satanic daring of his mind" (History of
Rationalism, ed. 1867, p. 119; ed. 1901, p. 139). This concerning
doctrines of a nearly invariable moral soundness, which to-day
would be almost universally received with approbation. Pünjer,
who cannot at any point indict the doctrines, falls back on
the professional device of classing them with the "platitudes"
of the Aufklärung; and, finding this insufficient to convey
a disparaging impression to the general reader, intimates that
Bahrdt, connecting ethic with rational sanitation, "does not shrink
from the coarseness of laying down" a rule for bodily health,
which Pünjer does not shrink from quoting (pp. 549-50). Finally
Bahrdt is dismissed as "the theological public-house-keeper of
Halle." So hard is it for men clerically trained to attain to
a manly rectitude in their criticism of anti-clericals. Bahrdt
was a great admirer of the Gospel Jesus; so Cairns (p. 178)
takes a lenient view of his life. On that and his doctrine
cp. Hagenbach, pp. 107-10; Pünjer, i, 546-50; Noack, Th. iii,
Kap. 5. Goethe satirized him in a youthful Prolog, but speaks of
him not unkindly in the Wahrheit und Dichtung. As a writer he is
much above the German average.