Art. I.—Dr. Carl Ullmann.[43]
Dr. Carl Ullmann is perhaps best known in this country and in America as the author of the two apologetic treatises, 'The Sinlessness of Jesus' and 'The Essence of Christianity;' but his name will probably live in the history of theology mainly as the founder, and for many years conductor of the Theologische Studien und Kritiken, that oldest and ablest of all the German theological journals. Though not what his fellow-countrymen term an epoch-making man, either in the scientific or practical sphere, he was unquestionably a representative man—representative of the best elements both of German thought and German character. Both the strength and weakness of German theologians were illustrated in his experience; the former in his successes, the latter in his failures. There are few, if any, German theologians whose works contain so much that applies directly to the theological needs and efforts of the present moment.
Dr. Carl Ullmann was born on the 15th of March, 1796, at Epfenbach, a village about half-way between Heidelberg and Mosbach, six miles from the river Neckar, where his father was pastor of the Reformed Church. Several of his forefathers on his mother's side had been pastors at Epfenbach; and his father, who was a native of Heidelberg, took possession of the living, and married the daughter of its previous incumbent at the same time. His father was a harmless, kind-hearted, cheerful, and pious man; his mother had a lively, imaginative, poetical temperament; the son inherited the qualities of both. The only other child, a daughter, died when very young.
Carl was of a delicate physical constitution, but eager to learn. Till he reached his ninth year, he went to the village school, the instruction at which was supplemented by his father. Among the first things he read were the poems of Claudius and Hebel; and he learnt by rote so easily, and took such a pleasure in declaiming poetry, that his parents used to say—'We must make a Professor of him.' Happy as he was at home, he began early to feel the lack of other companionship than that supplied by the peasant children with whom he associated, and a desire stirred in him to go out into the world. In the fragment of an autobiography which was found among his papers, he says:—'I remember the very spot—it was in one of the beautiful forests near my birth-place—where I first became conscious of a yearning to leave home. It was as strong as the yearning which one generally feels to return home when one is away. I was then seven years old.' In his ninth year he was accordingly sent to Mosbach, where he lodged with a clerical brother of his mother's, and attended the Latin school. After a year he entered the Gymnasium at Heidelberg, with the distinct idea of becoming a pastor, and perhaps eventually of succeeding his father. The school does not seem to have been all that it ought to have been; but the social influences by which he was surrounded were of an exceptionally stimulating and elevating kind. He rose from class to class in the Gymnasium with such rapidity, that he was prepared to pass the so-called Abiturienten-Examen[44] before reaching his seventeenth year—an unusually early age.
About this time his thoughts were almost completely turned aside from the profession he had intended to pursue, by the influence of friends of the family with which he lived. These were the brothers Boisseree, who were enthusiastic lovers of art, and had a fine collection of works of the old German masters. Young Ullmann was often invited by them to study their treasures, and became eventually so infected with their enthusiasm; or rather, perhaps, one ought to say, his own slumbering love of, and susceptibility to, the beautiful in nature and art, was so awakened, that he proposed to his parents to allow him to become a landscape painter. Two young men who were then his friends, and in whose company he used to traverse the charming scenes which abound in the neighbourhood of Heidelberg, afterwards became eminent artists, and he himself produced sketches and drawings full of the brightest promise. His parents, however, were shocked at the idea of their son taking up a profession that brought more honour than bread, especially as they were not in circumstances to sustain him until he should have attained a name and position; they urged on him, therefore, that he might secure leisure enough for the pursuit of art as a country pastor, and promised to let him study in Munich after completing his course at the University. The prospect thus opened up calmed him, and by the time his theological studies were completed, other thoughts filled his mind. To the end of his life, however, Ullmann remained a lover of art, and the æsthetic turn of his mind manifested itself in occasional poetic effusions, in that grace of style for which he was reputed beyond most of his contemporaries, and in a general refinement of culture. It is scarcely likely, however, that he would have attained the eminence as an artist that he gained as a theologian; and certainly the pursuit of art would not have admitted of his exerting the direct practical influence which he eventually wielded, and which was to him a source of such deep satisfaction.
He matriculated at Heidelberg in the autumn of 1812. The University had just lost one or two of its brightest ornaments—the youthful Neander, for example,—but still, notwithstanding its losses, next to the young and rising Berlin, it had the ablest professors, and was inspired by the highest aims. The most eminent member of the theological faculty was Daub; the most notorious was Paulus. The former was a man of remarkable force, energy, simplicity and earnestness, and so devoted to his academic vocation that he once wrote to his then young friend Rozenkranz, now Professor of Philosophy in Königsberg, and one of the few remaining Hegelians of the right wing, 'Holidays, do you say? Does the old man still take no holidays? No, my dear friend, not yet, nor do I want any; my heart's desire is, if possible, to die in my chair, docendo.' His desire was almost literally fulfilled; for the stroke which terminated his life, smote him whilst lecturing on anthropology, November 19th, 1836. He has been termed, rather wittily, but spitefully, the Talleyrand of German Philosophy and Theology, because 'he passed from the Kantian Revolution, through Schelling's Imperialism, to Hegel's Reactionaryism.' Deducting the spite, there is truth in the description, for he began his career as a thorough Kantian, then became a warm disciple of Schelling, and finished up as a Hegelian of the right wing. The changes he underwent were both sign and evidence of the honesty and thoroughness with which he devoted himself to the investigation of truth; there was not a trace in him of the frivolity of the French diplomatist. His best-known work is 'Judas Iscariot; or, Meditations on the Good in its relation to Evil.' Daub was still in his Schelling stage when Ullmann began to study. Paulus was, on the other hand, the most noted representative of the Rationalismus vulgaris, as it has been termed, in the department of exegesis. He was a man of wide reading, great learning, and acuteness, but possessed by so intense an aversion to everything that did not square with his narrow common sense, that he was incapable of understanding Christianity, and therefore made it his business to explain away everything that bore a supernatural or mystical character. Perhaps this was due in part to the fact that his father, who had been removed from his pastorate, ob absurdas phantasmagorica visiones divinas, forced him, whilst still a boy, to take part in the conferences with spirits and demons which he was in the habit of holding in conjunction with others like-minded. Professor Tholuck, of Halle, rarely lets pass an opportunity, in his exegetical lectures, of whetting his humour on some absurdity or other of Paulus. A greater contrast than that between him and Daub could scarcely have existed; and scientifically they may be said to have lived like cat and dog. Beside these two, another eminent name then graced the rolls of the University—Creuzer, author of the 'Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker, insbesondere der Griechen,' a work which was long the chief authority on its subject, and which even now well deserves consulting.
Ullmann's mind seems at this stage to have been in the unreflective state, in which, perhaps, a majority of German theological students are at the outset; naturally so, too, for his vocation was rather the choice of his parents than his own. He says about himself:—
'As I was still young, and my father wished me to have plenty of time for study, I did not at once devote myself exclusively to strictly professional studies, but attended the philosophical and philological lectures of Daub and Creuzer, and those on the "Encyclopædia of Theology" and "Church History," by Paulus. During the year that I thus spent at Heidelberg, I cannot say that I either felt any specific interest in science, or evinced any independence of mind. I was an industrious and respectful hearer, but little more. With the idea of setting me on my own feet, and plunging me more into theology, my father wished me to go to another University.'
Advised by Daub, Ullmann accordingly resolved to go to Tübingen.