Drey, Johann Sebastian

DREY, JOHANN SEBASTIAN. - Theologian and apologist, b. at Killingen on 16 Oct. 1777, d. at Tübingen on 16 Feb. 1853. Ordained priest in 1801, he was assigned to parish ministry, and at the same time devoted himself to the study of the philosophy then in vogue. In 1806 he began his teaching at the gymnasium of Rottweil, from which he passed in 1812 to the University of Ellwangen and then to that of Tübingen, where two years later he founded, together with 3 other colleagues, the Theologische Quartalschrift, which has rendered immense services to Catholic scholarship. He alternated the chair of dogmatics with that of apologetics, leaving behind a copious scholarly output in which the philosophical-historical contribution to the subjects treating of Revelation is notable. The theology of the 19th century, especially German theology, is indebted to D. for the positive orientation in the study of dogma.

Of his works the following deserve mention: Observata quaedam ad illustrandam Postini martyris de regno millenario sententiam (Gmund 1814); Dissertatio historico-theologica originem et vicissitudinem exomologeseo in Ecclesia catholica ex documentis ecclesiasticis illustrans (Ellwangen 1815); Einleitung im Studium der Theologie (Tübingen 1819); Neue Untersuchungen über die Constitution und Kanones der Apostel (ibid. 1832); Die Apologetik als wissenschaftliche Nachweisung der Göttlichkeit des Christentums (3 vols., Mainz 1838-47).

Cosimo Potino