CHRISTIAN DANIEL BECK. — Lutheran theologian and philologist, born in Leipzig on 22 January 1757, died there on 13 December 1832. He studied ancient philology, theology, and history, and in 1785 became an ordinary professor of “Graecarum et Latinarum litterarum.” Of vast erudition, he taught daily for four to five hours: the New Testament, on Sundays, the history of states and of the Church, Greek and Latin literature, and archaeology. He was librarian of the University of Leipzig and served twelve times as its rector. He united philology with theology, and was the last to conceive of philology as a many-stringed instrument.
He published more than 2,000 works on the classics and on theology, translations from French and English, as well as many occasional writings. Several of his works remained unfinished. His theological works include: Instituti historico religionis christianae (1793 and 1811); Commentarii historici decretorum religionis christianae et homiliae Lutheranae (1801); Monogrammata Hermeneutices librorum Novi Foederis (Leipzig 1803), an important work, though it remained only in the first part.