BAUER, BRUNO (1809-1882), German theologian and historian, was born on the 6th of September 1809, the son of a painter in a porcelain factory, at Eisenberg in Saxe-Altenburg. He studied at Berlin, where he attached himself to the “Right” of the Hegelian school under P. Marheineke. In 1834 he began to teach in Berlin as a licentiate of theology, and in 1839 was transferred to Bonn. In 1838 he published his Kritische Darstellung der Religion des Alten Testaments (2 vols.), which shows that at that date he was still faithful to the Hegelian Right. Soon afterwards his opinions underwent a change, and in two works, one on the Fourth Gospel, Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte des Johannes (1840), and the other on the Synoptics, Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte der Synoptiker (1841), as well as in his Herr Hengstenberg, kritische Briefe über den Gegensatz des Gesetzes und des Evangeliums, he announced his complete rejection of his earlier orthodoxy. In 1842 the government revoked his license and he retired for the rest of his life to Rixdorf, near Berlin. Henceforward he took a deep interest in modern history and politics, as well as in theology, and published Geschichte der Politik, Kultur und Aufklärung des 18ten Jahrhunderts (4 vols. 1843-1845), Geschichte der französischen Revolution (3 vols. 1847), and Disraelis romantischer und Bismarcks socialistischer Imperialismus (1882). Other critical works are: a criticism of the gospels and a history of their origin, Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs (1850-1852), a book on the Acts of the Apostles, Apostelgeschichte (1850), and a criticism of the Pauline epistles, Kritik der paulinischen Briefe (1850-1852). He died at Rixdorf on the 13th of April 1882. His criticism of the New Testament was of a highly destructive type. David Strauss in his Life of Jesus had accounted for the Gospel narratives as half-conscious products of the mythic instinct in the early Christian communities. Bauer ridiculed Strauss’s notion that a community could produce a connected narrative. His own contention, embodying a theory of C.G. Wilke (Der Urevangelist, 1838), was that the original narrative was the Gospel of Mark; that this was composed in the reign of Hadrian; and that after this the other narratives were modelled by other writers. He, however, “regarded Mark not only as the first narrator, but even as the creator of the gospel history, thus making the latter a fiction and Christianity the invention of a single original evangelist” (Pfleiderer). On the same principle the four principal Pauline epistles were regarded as forgeries of the 2nd century. He argued further for the preponderance of the Graeco-Roman element, as opposed to the Jewish, in the Christian writings. The writer of Mark’s gospel was “an Italian, at home both in Rome and Alexandria”; that of Matthew’s gospel “a Roman, nourished by the spirit of Seneca”; the Pauline epistles were written in the West in antagonism to the Paul of the Acts, and so on. Christianity is essentially “Stoicism triumphant in a Jewish garb.” This line of criticism has found few supporters, mostly in the Netherlands. It certainly had its value in emphasizing the importance of studying the influence of environment in the formation of the Christian Scriptures. Bauer was a man of restless, impetuous activity and independent, if ill-balanced, judgment, one who, as he himself perceived, was more in place as a free-lance of criticism than as an official teacher. He came in the end to be regarded kindly even by opponents, and he was not afraid of taking a line displeasing to his liberal friends on the Jewish question (Die Judenfrage, 1843).
His attitude towards the Jews is dealt with in the article in the Jewish Encyclopedia. See generally Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie; and cf. Otto Pfleiderer, Development of Theology, p. 226; Carl Schwarz, Zur Geschichte der neuesten Theologie, pp. 142 ff.; and F. Lichtenberger, History of German Theology in the 19th Century (1889), pp. 374-378.
BAUERNFELD, EDUARD VON (1802-1890), Austrian dramatist, was born at Vienna on the 13th of January 1802. Having studied jurisprudence at the university of Vienna, he entered the government service in a legal capacity, and after holding various minor offices was transferred in 1843 to a responsible post on the Lottery Commission. He had already embarked upon politics, and severely criticized the government in a pamphlet, Pia Desideria eines österreichischen Schriftstellers (1842); and in 1845 he made a journey to England, after which his political opinions became more pronounced. After the Revolution, in 1848, he quitted the government service in order to devote himself entirely to letters. He lived in Vienna until his death on the 9th of August 1890, and was ennobled for his work. As a writer of comedies and farces, Bauernfeld takes high rank among the German playwrights of the century; his plots are clever, the situations witty and natural and the diction elegant. His earliest essays, the comedies Leichtsinn aus Liebe (1831); Das Liebes-Protokoll (1831) and Die ewige Liebe (1834); Bürgerlich und Romantisch, (1835) enjoyed great popularity. Later he turned his attention to so-called Salonstücke (drawing-room pieces), notably Aus der Gesellschaft (1866); Moderne Jugend (1869), and Der Landfrieden (1869), in which he portrays in fresh, bright and happy sallies the social conditions of the capital in which he lived.
A complete edition of Bauernfeld’s works, Gesammelte Schriften, appeared in 12 vols. (Vienna, 1871-1873); Dramatischer Nachlass, ed. by F. von Saar (1893); selected works, ed. by E. Horner (4 vols., 1905). See A. Stern, Bauernfeld, Ein Dichterportrat (1890), R. von Gottschall, “E. von Bauernfeld” (in Unsere Zeit, 1890), and E. Horner, Bauernfeld (1900).
BAUFFREMONT, a French family which derives its name from a village in the Vosges, spelt nowadays Beaufremont. In consequence of an alliance with the house of Vergy the Bauffremonts established themselves in Burgundy and Franche-Comté. In 1448 Pierre de Bauffremont, lord of Charny, married Maríe, a legitimatized daughter of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy. Nicolas de Bauffremont, his son Claude, and his grandson Henri, all played important parts in the states-general of 1576, 1588 and 1614, and their speeches have been published. Alexandre Emmanuel Louis de Bauffremont (1773-1833), a prince of the Holy Roman Empire, was created a peer of France in 1817, and duke in 1818. After having served in the army of the princes he returned to France under the Empire, and had been made a count by Napoleon.
(M. P.*)
BAUHIN, GASPARD (1560-1624), Swiss botanist and anatomist, was the son of a French physician, Jean Bauhin (1511-1582), who had to leave his native country on becoming a convert to Protestantism. He was born at Basel on the 17th of January 1560, and devoting himself to medicine, he pursued his studies at Padua, Montpellier, and some of the celebrated schools in Germany. Returning to Basel in 1580, he was admitted to the degree of doctor, and gave private lectures in botany and anatomy. In 1582 he was appointed to the Greek professorship in that university, and in 1588 to the chair of anatomy and botany. He was afterwards made city physician, professor of the practice of medicine, rector of the university, and dean of his faculty. He died at Basel on the 5th of December 1624. He published several works relative to botany, of which the most valuable was his Pinax Theatri Botanici, seu Index in Theophrasti, Dioscoridis, Plinii, et botanicorum qui a seculo scripserunt opera (1596). Another great work which he planned was a Theatrum Botanicum, meant to be comprised in twelve parts folio, of which he finished three; only one, however, was published (1658). He also gave a copious catalogue of the plants growing in the environs of Basel, and edited the works of P.A. Mattioli (1500-1577) with considerable additions. He likewise wrote on anatomy, his principal work on this subject being Theatrum Anatomicum infinitis locis auctum (1592).