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Encyclopedia Britannica



TELLER, WILHELM ABRAHAM (1734-1804)

This article appears in Volume V26, Page 576 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: TAV-THE
TELLER, WILHELM ABRAHAM (1734-1804) , German
Protestant
  divine, was born at
Leipzig
  on the 9th of January 1734. His father, Romanus Teller (17031750), was a pastor at
Leipzig
 , and afterwards became professor of theology in the university. He edited the earlier volumes of a Bibelwerk (19 vols., 174970) which was designed as an adaptation for German readers of the exegetical works of Andrew Willet, Henry Ainsworth, Symon Patrick,
Matthew
  Poole,
Matthew
 
Henry and others. Wilhelm Abraham studied philosophy and theology in the university of his native town. Amongst the men whose influence mainly determined his theological position and line of
work
  was J. A. Ernesti. Teller's writings present rationalism in its course of development from biblical supernaturalism to the borders of deistical naturalism. His first learned production was a Latin translation of Benjamin
Kennicott
 's Dissertation on the State of the Printed Hebrew Text of the Old Testament (1756), which was followed the next year by an essay in which he expounded his own
critical
  principles. In 1761 he was appointed pastor, professor of theology and general superintendent in the university of Helmstedt. Here he pursued his exegetical, theological and historical researches, the results of which appeared in his Lehrbuch des christlichen Glaubens (1764). This
work
  caused some commotion, as much by the novelty of its method as by the heterodoxy of its matter, and more by its omissions than by its positive teaching, though everywhere the author seeks to put theological doctrines in a decidedly modern form. In 1767 Teller, whose attitude had made his position at Helmstedt intolerable, was glad to accept an invitation from the Prussian minister for ecclesiastical affairs to the post of provost of Kelln, with a seat in the supreme consistory of Berlin. Here he found himself in the company of the rationalistic theologians of PrussiaF. S. G. Sack (1i381817), Johann
Joachim
  Spalding (17141804) and others and became one of the leaders of the rationalistic party, and one of the
chief
  contributors to C. F. Nicolai's Allgemeinc Deutsche Bibliothek. Teller was not long in making use of his freer position in Berlin. In 1772 appeared the most popular of his books, Worterbuch des Neuen Testamentes zur Erklarung der christlichen Lehre (6th ed., 18o5). The object of this work was to recast the language and ideas of the New Testament and give them the form of 18th-century illuminism. The author maintains that the Graeco-Hebraic expressions must not be interpreted literally, but explained in terms intelligible to the modern mind. By this lexicon Teller had put himself amongst the most advanced rationalists, and his opponents charged him with the design of overthrowing positive Christianity altogether. In 1786 the author became a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. The " Wollner edict " of July 9, 1788, for the enforcement of Lutheran orthodoxy, and Teller's manly action, as member o the consistorial council, in defiance of it (cf. his Wohlgemeinte Erinnerungen, 1788), led the Prussian government to pass upcn him the sentence of suspension for three months, with forfeiture of his stipend. He was not, however, to be moved by such means, and (1792) issued his work Die Religion der Vollkommeneren, an exposition of his theological position, in which he advocated at length the idea, subsequently often urged, of " the perfectibility of Christianity,"that is, of the ultimate transformation of Christianity into a
scheme
  of simple morality, with a complete rejection of all specifically Christian ideas and methods. This book represents the culminating point of German illuminism, and is separated by a long process of development from the author's Lehrbuch. In the same year he published his Anleitung zur Religion iiberhaupt and sum Allgemeinen des Christenthums besonders; fiir die Jugend hOherer and gebildeter Stande aller Religions parteien. Teller died on the 9th of December 1804. Besides his contributions to the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek, he edited a popular and practically useful Magazin fur Prediger (17921801).
See W. Gass, Geschichte der protestantischen Dogmatik, iv. pp. 206222; P. Wolff, art. in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie (ed. 1907); Heinrich Doring, Deutsche Kanzelredner des 18ten and I9ten Jahrh., p. 506 seq. ; Edward Pusey, Causes of the
Late
  Rationalistic Character of German Theology (1828), p. 15o; and cf. the article in the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie.


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