BAUR, FERDINAND CHRISTIAN. - Protestant theologian, b. at Schmieden on 22 June 1792, d. at Tübingen on 2 Dec. 1860. He studied at the University of Tübingen, intending to follow his father’s career as a Lutheran pastor. After a few months, however, he abandoned the ministry to devote himself to teaching and, above all, to the study of the origins of Christianity. In 1826, at the age of 32, he obtained the chair of Church History and Dogma at the same university, which he held until his death.
His principal works include: *Die sogenannten Pastoral-Briefe* (Tübingen 1835); *Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi* (Stuttgart 1845, 2nd ed. Leipzig 1867); *Kritische Untersuchungen über die canonischen Evangelien* (Tübingen 1847); *Das Markusevangelium nach seinem Ursprung und Character* (ibid. 1851); *Das Christentum und die christliche Kirche in den drei ersten Jahrhunderten* (vol. I of his *Kirchengeschichte*, ibid. 1853, 2nd ed., ibid. 1860); *Vorlesungen über die neutestamentliche Theologie* (ibid. 1867, posthumous), and a large number of dissertations published in three theological collections.
A fervent follower of Hegelian philosophy, B. applied to the New Testament the theory of the continuous becoming and evolution of the universal idea through an indefinite series of theses and antitheses culminating in synthesis or fusion. Christianity, accordingly, represents a transitional phase in the religious becoming of humanity. Christ inaugurated this phase by seizing the religious idea elaborated over the centuries and rendering it capable of conquering the world by casting it in the mold of Jewish messianism. The further effort made by the religious idea to free itself from the special form impressed upon it by the Founder sums up the entire history of the Christian religion.
This effort corresponds to a continuous struggle between the universalistic element and the particularistic or Jewish element; the former is represented by Paul (Pauline-ism) and the latter by Peter (Petrine-ism). The struggle reached its denouement, or synthesis, only toward the middle of the 2nd century, through repeated and graduated attempts at accommodation that were to lead to the constitution of the (Jewish element) Catholic (Pauline element) Church. In the end, it was Pauline-ism that prevailed.
The rapprochement would have been facilitated by the growing need for unity in the face of the inroads of Gnostic heresy and the outbreak of Roman persecutions, and it was promoted by writings in which both sides sought to bury the past, to soften their differences, and to invite mutual concessions. B. therefore distinguishes three groups of writings: those of the Jewish faction (thesis), those of the Pauline faction formed by Gentile-Christians (antithesis), and those of the conciliatory tendency (synthesis).
On this basis, B. claims to explain the formation of the canon of New Testament books: a) in the 1st century he places the four great Epistles—to the Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and the Galatians—recognized as Pauline and considered as anti-Petrine circular letters; he attributes the Apocalypse instead to the opposing tendency and groups it with certain contemporary apocryphal writings (Gospel of the Hebrews, of the Ebionites, of Peter, etc.); b) of uncertain date he considers the Epistles to the Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians: in these the anti-Petrine tendency is already so attenuated that they cannot with certainty be ascribed to St. Paul; similarly, the Epistles of Peter and James are deemed too little anti-Pauline to be attributed to one of the Twelve; c) B. places in the 2nd century the Pastoral Epistles, written to combat the heretic Marcion (and his followers), in which Pauline teaching appears watered down; and the Acts of the Apostles, which would be the principal work of the conciliatory tendency, since with its words and deeds (distorted or invented) it aims to present Peter in a universalistic frame and Paul in a Jewish one; d) the Gospels, at least in their present form, would also belong to the 2nd century. Matthew’s Gospel, with its pacifying tendency, would have arisen from a reworking of the apocryphal “Gospel of the Hebrews”; Luke’s Gospel would be Marcion’s Pauline Gospel, modified according to the same tendency; Mark is neutral and of no historical value; John presupposes that the reconciliation has long been an accomplished fact.
This “tendency criticism,” called “Tübingen criticism,” placed B. at the head of German New Testament scholarship and established him as the leader of the noted “New Tübingen School” (“new” to distinguish it from the orthodox apologetic school of the 18th century), whose cohesion lasted only briefly, for his best disciples (such as E. Zeller, A. Schwegler, A. Hingelfeld, K. Holsten, K. Holl, etc.) soon fell into disagreement with one another.
Following a less subjective criterion than their master’s, some of these scholars contested B.’s conclusions, even calling into question the very fundamental a priori schema; while Catholics attacked the system, relying, among other things, on the Epistle to the Galatians itself, which B. had used to document the existence of a sectarian dualism within primitive Christianity. When he died, his school could be said to be in decline; yet its animating spirit persisted and indeed grew stronger, and it has always had many followers among the “critics” of the New Testament regarding the thesis of “tendencies.” A. Loisy and M. Goguel, for example, have made use of B.’s ecclesiological conception.