THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE
REUSCH, reish, FRANZ HEINRICH: German Old Catholic; b. at Brilon (78 m. n.e. of Cologne) Dec. 4, 1825; d. at Bonn Mar. 3, 1900. He was educated at the universities of Bonn (1843-45), Tubingen, and Munich (1845^7), and the seminary of Cologne (1848—49) ; he was ordained to the priesthood in 1849, chaplain of St. Alban's at Cologne until 1853, when he returned to Bonn as lecturer in the theological seminary there, and in 1854 became privat-docent in the Roman Catholic theological faculty of the university of the same city. In 1858 he was appointed associate professor of Old- Testament exegesis, and three years later became full professor, while in 1873-74 he was rector of the university. The Vatican Council of 1870 marked an epoch in the life of Reusch, after he had already written his commentaries on Tobit (1857) and Ecclesiasticus (1861), as well as a Lehrbuch der Einleitung in das Alte Testament (1859) and Bibel und Natur, Vorlesungen iiber die mosaische Urgeschichte und ihr Verhaltnis zu den Ergebnissen der Naturforschung (1862). As a theologian he had taken a position with the liberal wing of the Roman Catholics, as evidenced by his editorship of the Theologisches Litteraturblatt from 1866 to 1877. His refusal to subscribe to the declaration of papal infallibility, however, caused him to be suspended and excommunicated, and he then took an active part in organizing the Old Catholic Church, being made general vicar by Reinkens, and also acting as pastor of the Old Catholic congregation at Bonn. With the abolition of the requirement of celibacy in his denomination in 1878, Reusch resigned his offices, though he continued to give instruction in religion, as well as to conduct occasional services and to hear confessions.
His change of confession turned Reusch from Old- Testament exegesis to the history of the Roman Catholic Church after the Reformation. Here belong, accordingly, his Luis de Leon und die spanische Inquisition (1873), Der Prozess Galileis und die Jesuiten (1879), and, above all, his Index der verbotenen Biicher (2 vols., 1883-85). Together with J. J. I. von Dollinger (q. v.) he published the Selbstbiographie des Kardinals Bellarmin (1887) and the Geschichte der Moralstreitigkeiten in der romischkatholischen Kirche seit dem sechzehnten Jahrhundert (2 vols., 1889), and after Dollinger's death he edited his Briefe und Erkldrungen uber die vatikanischen Dekrete (1890) and Kleiner e Schriften (1890). X.— 1
During this latter period of his life Reusch also wrote, besides numerous briefer contributions, Die deutschen Bischofe und der Aberglaube (1879) and Beitrdge zur Geschichte des Jesuitenordens (1894), while his last work was his Briefe an Bunsen von romischen Kardindlen und Prdlaten (1818-37) mit Erlduterungen (1897). (L. K. Goetz.)
Bibliography: L. K. Goetz, Franz Heinrich Reusch 1825- 1900, Gotha, 1901; J. F. von Schulte, Der Altkatholicismus, Giessen, 1887; J. Mayor, Franz Heinrich Reusch, Cambridge, 1901; Vigouroux, Dictionnaire, fasc. xxxiv. 1078-79.
REUSS, reis, EDUARD GUILLAUME EUGENE: Biblical scholar; b. at Strasburg July 18, 1804; d. there Apr. 15, 1891. His preliminary studies were pursued at the gymnasium of his native city, during which his bent was developed for accurate scholarship; he continued work first at the University of Strasburg, where his dissertation De statu literarum theologicarum per swcula VII. et VIII. was written (1825), after which he went to GSttingen and later to Halle and Jena, and finally to Paris, where he worked under Sylvestre de Sacy. In 1828 he became privat-docent in the Protestant seminary at Strasburg, in 1829 licentiate in theology with the thesis De libris Veteris Testamenti apocryphis, extraordinary professor in 1834, professor in 1836, and he entered the theological faculty in 1838. During the rest of his activity there he held many offices of importance and influence.
Reuss did not permit himself to engage in a wide field of research, and had no interest in either dogmatic or practical theology, while he preached only three times. Philosophic speculation also had no attraction for him, and he confined his efforts to Biblical science, in which he evinced the talents of a historical investigator, showing patience in pursuing details and diligence in collecting facts. An illustration of this is the fact that he projected his work on the history of the Old Testament as early as 1834 but issued it only in 1881 (Geschichte der heiligen Schriften des Alten Testaments, Brunswick). Graf was one of his students and was influenced by him in the line of work carried on by himself and further developed by Kuenen and Wellhausen. A like importance attaches to his work on the New Testament, his original edition of Die Geschichte der heiligen Schriften Neuen Testaments appearing in Brunswick, 1842 (6th ed., 1887; Eng. transl., Hist, of the Sacred Scriptures of the N. T., Edinburgh,
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