DREY, JOHANN SEBASTIAN. - Theologian and apologist, b. at Killingen on 16 Oct. 1777, d. at Tübingen on 16 Feb. 1853. Ordained a priest in 1801, he was assigned to parish ministry, while at the same time devoting himself to the study of the philosophy then in vogue. In 1806 he began teaching at the gymnasium of Rottwell, whence in 1812 he moved to the University of Ellwangen and then to that of Tübingen, where, two years later, together with three other colleagues, he founded the Theologische Quartalschrift, which has rendered immense services to Catholic scholarship. He alternated the chair of dogmatics with that of apologetics, leaving an abundant scholarly output in which the philosophical-historical contribution to the subjects dealing with Revelation is noteworthy. Nineteenth-century theology, especially German theology, owes to D. the positive orientation in the study of dogma.
Among his works deserving mention are: 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).