THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
studied at the academy of Neuchatel and the universities of Leipsic, Kiel, Berlin, and Erlangen (Ph.D., Kiel, 1892). In 1901 he became privat-docent for New-Testament exegesis and early Christian literature in Kiel, where he was appointed full professor in 1905. He has written De libri Coheleth versione Alexandrina (Kiel, 1892); Griechische Exzerpte aus Homilien des Origenes (Leipsic, 1894); Analekta zur Septuaginta, Hexapla und Patristik (1895); Die Schriften des Origenes und Hieronymus Brief an Paula (Berlin, 1897); U eberlieferung der Jeremiashomilie des Origenes (Leipsic, 1897); Eusebius' Schrift Trepl rav tottikuv ovo/i&tuv toiv iv rrj Seia ypafij (1902); Reste des Petrusevangeliums, der Petrusapokalypse und des Kerugma Petri (Bonn, 1903) ; Ueber des Didymus von Alexandrien In epistolas canonicas enarratio (Leipsic, 1905) ; and commentary on Mark (Tubingen, 1907; in collaboration with H. Greasmann).
KNAPP, ALBERT: The most distinguished German writer of spiritual songs in the first half of the nineteenth century; b. at Tubingen July 25, 1798; d. at Stuttgart June 18, 1864. He was the son of a councilor of the superior court in Tubingen, and his boyhood was spent in the poetic and inspiring atmosphere of the Black Forest. He entered the seminary of Maulbronn in 1814, and from 1816 to 1820 studied at the Evangelical theological seminary in Tubingen, where he imbibed more poetry than theology and found the pranks of student life more to his taste than the supernaturalism of the time. In 1820 he was sent to Feuerbach as vicar, and later to Gaisberg, both villages near Stuttgart. In Gaisberg he met Ludwig Hofacker (q.v.) and under his influence Knapp's life became more serious and his convictions more Evangelical. In 1825 he was appointed deacon in Sulz-on-the-Neckar and in 1831 in Kirchheim, at the special request of Duchess Henrietta of Wiirttemberg. In 1836 he became deacon at the Hospitalkirche in Stuttgart, then archdeacon at the Stiftskirche, and in 1845 pastor of St. Leonardskirche. He declined the office of rural dean and was not active in the Christian and charitable associations of the town, preferring to confine himself to parochial duties, by which he won many personal friends and the love of his congregation.
Knapp's character was eminently broad, strong, and natural, his motto being Homo sum, nil humani a me alienum puto. His mind was open to everything noble and sublime in art and nature. But this susceptibility was kept within the limits of a spiritual orthodoxy, and he attacked every philosophy and theology which attempted to shake or undermine the fundamentals of Christian truth, which was for him also the absolutely beautiful. He was averse to all extremes, to those of orthodoxy as much as to the negative tendencies of the theologians, nor had he any sympathy with the onesided views of sect. His standpoint was that of a pure Evangelical Christianity and a moderate confessionalism. He was not as powerful a preacher as Ludwig Hofacker, but his sermons are distinguished by a varied wealth and depth of thought expressed in vigorous language. His addresses to
his fellow preachers at ministerial conferences were no less remarkable.
Knapp was an original poet and hymn-writer and his claim to permanent fame rests upon his
gift for spiritual poetry. His collections of poems
Christliche Gedichte (2 vols., Basel, 1829); Neuere Gedichte (2 vols., 1834); Christenlieder (Stuttgart 1841), a collection of hymns including forty-eight original; Neueste Folge (1843); Auswahl (1854 1868); Herbstbluten (1859) — reveal his fertility' though some of them lack final finish. Nature and its glories furnish him inexhaustible material and inspiration, but he also treats facts of history and powerful personalities. In his Christoterpe, a Christian almanac and year-book, which he edited from 1833 to 1853, he celebrates poets like Goethe and Schiller, warriors like Napoleon, musicians like Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven, German heroes like the Hohenstauffens, classical antiquity, and modern history. He aimed to unite in his poems " transient nature and the fleeting life of man, and, raising itself above them both, the Word of God in its eternal youth." As far back as the twenties he conceived the idea of offering to the Christian public an Evangelischer Liederschatz fur Kirche und Haw. From more than 80,000 hymns he selected 3,590 and published them at Stuttgart in 1837 He considered some changes of the text necessary, especially the removal of harsh expressions and grammatical faults; but he went further and took the liberty of " putting shallow and feeble expressions into a more vigorous, Biblical language and of filling up apparent gaps by new strophes and of freely reproducing whole songs." In single cases he succeeded brilliantly, but on the whole he had to confess in the second edition (1850) that he had been frequently guided too strongly by his subjective feelings. Even in this revised edition he did not properly reproduce the original, as he was still guided by the principle that the old hymns should be adapted to modern taste. The same may be said of the third edition (1865). The work received bitter criticism from G. C. H. Stip in his Hymrwlogische Reisebriefe (Berlin, 1852) and from Philipp Wackernagel in the Kirchentag at Bremen in the same year. A collection of Knapp's prose works appeared under the title Gesammelte prosaische Schriften (2 parts, Stuttgart, 1875). It consists chiefly of biographies of men like Ludwig Hofacker, Dann. Flatt, Eberhard Worner, Hedinger, Zinzendorf, and others. Here the poet perceived many traits of character and motives of life which would be lost to the ordinary eye.
(Richard LauxmannI.)
Bibliography: A Lebensbild, begun by himself and finished by his son, J. Knapp, appeared Stuttgart, 1867. Brief sketches are by K. Gerok, ib. 1879, and O. Brussan, Hamburg, 1902; Julian, Hymnology, pp. 627-628.
KNAPP, knap, GEORG CHRISTIAN: German Protestant; b. at Glaucha, Halle, Sept. 17, 1753; d. at Halle Oct. 14, 1825. He was the son of the pietist Johann Georg Knapp, and was one of the last exponents of Pietism in Halle. After studying at the universities of Halle and Gottingen he became extraordinary professor of theology at Halle in 1/" and full professor in 1782. In 1785 he assumed,