LAGARDE (BÖTTICHER), PAUL ANTON de. - German Protestant Orientalist who wished to be considered a theologian, b. in Berlin on 2 Nov. 1827, d. in Göttingen on 22 Dec. 1891. Son of a secondary-school teacher, Wilhelm Bötticher, adopted in 1854 by his great-aunt Ernestina de Lagarde, he was a lecturer at Halle, a secondary-school teacher in Berlin, engaged in private studies at Schleusingen near Meiningen (Thuringia), and full professor in 1869 at Göttingen.
He devoted himself to Semitic, Coptic, Armenian, Persian, etc. studies. He edited important editions: Der Pentateuch koptisch (1867); Onomastica sacra (1870; 2nd ed. 1887); Psalterium iuxta Hebraeos Hieronymi (1874); Liber. Vet. Test. canon. pars prior, Graece (1883), published 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); finally some 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 the documents of the facts of the internal and external life of Christianity. He seemed convinced that he had the mission of admonishing and urging toward truth, honesty, sincerity. With time he saw himself increasingly hindered and obstructed by adversaries, not without fault of his own: L. was imprudent, offensive, unbalanced in polemics. Being of a profoundly romantic disposition, he showed himself a declared enemy of every liberalism and materialism; he was opposed to Bismarck's policy. His love for his compatriots made him an adversary of the Jews, without however ever making him a crude antisemite. In his writings he treated all the great religious and cultural problems of interest to his homeland. He drew close to the Catholic Church by recognizing the Sacraments as external symbols of piety given by God, esteeming principally the Holy Eucharist as the presence of God in the world. He rejected Luther's "reform" and detached himself from Protestantism; he nonetheless had an aversion toward St. Augustine and even toward St. Paul, declaring him a Pharisee in dialectic.