LAGARDE (BÖTTICHER), PAUL ANTON de. — German Protestant Orientalist who wished to be considered a theologian, born in Berlin on 2 November 1827, died in Göttingen on 22 December 1891. Son of a secondary-school professor, Wilhelm Bötticher, adopted in 1854 by his grandaunt Ernestina de Lagarde, he was a privatdozent at Halle, a secondary-school professor in Berlin, engaged in private studies at Schleusingen near Meiningen (Thuringia), and in 1869 became a full professor at Göttingen.
He devoted himself to Semitic, Coptic, Armenian, Persian, and other studies. He prepared important editions: Der Pentateuch hoptisch (1867); Onomastica sacra (1870; 2nd ed. 1887); Psalterium iuxta Hebraeos Hieronymi (1874); Liber. Vet. Test. canon. pars prior, Graece (1883), edited from manuscripts in which he recognized the text of Lucian; Le opere italiane di Giordano Bruno (1888), Evangelium Hierosolymitanum (1889), Bibliotheca Syriaca (1892). He also published: Deutsche Schriften (1878–81); Mitteilungen (4 vols., 1884–91); Nominalbildung im Aram., Arab. und Hebr. (1891); and, finally, several poems.
According to L.’s thought, history is the realization of the kingdom of God on earth, and theology presents itself as the science of this process. He sought to offer a historical science based on documentary evidence concerning the facts of the inner and outer life of Christianity. He seemed convinced that he had been entrusted with the mission of admonishing and urging people toward truth, honesty, and sincerity. With time he found himself increasingly obstructed and hindered by adversaries, though not without some fault of his own: L. was imprudent, offensive, and unbalanced in controversy. Being of a profoundly romantic disposition, he showed himself an avowed enemy of every form of liberalism and materialism; he was opposed to Bismarck’s policy. His love for his compatriots made him an adversary of the Jews, without ever making him a crude antisemite. In his writings he addressed all the great religious and cultural problems affecting his homeland. He drew closer to the Catholic Church by recognizing the Sacraments as external symbols of piety given by God, esteeming above all the Holy Eucharist as the presence of God in the world. He rejected Luther’s “Reformation” and detached himself from Protestantism; nevertheless, he felt antipathy toward St. Augustine and even toward St. Paul, whom he called a Pharisee in dialectic.