49 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Tyndale Tzschirner
come into serious conflict with his communion until 1906, when in his Much-Abused Letter (generally supposed to be to the late St. George Mivart) he denied that Roman Catholic theology is perfect and inerrant, and held that the visible Church is but a mutable organism subject to development and modification, he incurred the extreme displeasure of the ecclesiastical authorities. He had sought release from his obligations as a religious on the condemnation of the works of Loisy in 1904, and now, on his refusal to retract the above teachings, he was expelled from the Jesuit order in Feb., 1906. He was also forbidden to officiate in the archdiocese of Westminster, and declined the proffered right to exercise priestly functions in the archdiocese of Mecheln on condition that he submit any future writings to the censor. When, finally, he sharply criticized the encyclical Pascendi in 1907, he incurred the minor excommunication. Theologically he described himself as a “‘ liberal Roman Catholic.’”’ His works, some of which have gone through repeated editions and been translated into German and French, are as follows: Nova et Vetera (London, 1897); Hard Sayings (1898); External Religion (1899) ; Faith of the Millions (2 vols., 1901); Lex Orandi (1903); Lex Credendi (1906); Ozl and Wine (1907); Through Scylla and Charybdis (1907); A Much-Abused Letter (1907); Medievalism (1908); and Christianity at the Cross Roads (1909).
TZSCHIRNER, tshir’ner, HEINRICH GOTT- LIEB: German Lutheran; b. at Mittweida (10 m. n.n.e. of Chemnitz), Saxony, Nov. 14, 1778; d. at Leipsic Feb. 17, 1828. He was educated at the University of Leipsic (1796-99), and in 1800 became privat-docent at Wittenberg, where he was soon appointed adjunct of the philosophical faculty. Before long, however, the death of his father led him to exchange his academic position for that of deacon of his native town, where he found leisure, despite his parochial duties, for writing, Leben und Ende merkwiirdiger Selbstmérder (Weissenfel8, 1805); Ueber den moralischen Indifferentismus (Leipsic, 1805), and began a Geschichte der A pologetik (1805). Largely because of the latter work, he was recalled to Wittenberg in 1805 as professor of theology, thus having occasion to prepare his De dignitate hominis per religionem Christianam adserta et declarata (Wittenberg, 1805) and De virtutum et vitiorum inter se cognatione (1805), the latter touching upon a theme more fully developed in his Ueber die Verwandtschaft der Tugenden und Laster (Leipsic, 1809). In his De sacris publicis ab ecclesia vetere studiose cultis (Wittenberg, 1808), moreover, he issued a prelude to his intended history of Christian worship, which his academic duties forced him to relinquish. He lectured on natural theology, dogmatics, and homiletics, as well as on church history after 1806.
In 1809 Tzschirner was called to Leipsic as fourth professor of theology. His ability as a church historian was evinced by his preparation of the ninth and tenth volumes of J. M. Schréckh’s great Christliche Kirchengeschichte seit der Reformation (Leipsic, 1810-12); while as a dogmatic and homiletic scholar he wrote Beurteilende Darstellung der dogmatischen Systeme, welche in der protestantischen Kirche gefun-
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den werden (in Memorabilien, i., 1810-11), and Briefe veranlasst durch Reinhards Gestdndnisse (1811), in which he sought to prove that the only middle way between rationalism and supernaturalism was an ethical and critical rationalism which held the rational concept of morality to be the supreme principle of Christianity, and criticized the Scriptures on the basis of this concept, retaining all connected with moral requirements, and rejecting all temporal elements derived from the later Jewish theology. In 1813 Tzschirner was for a short time chaplain in the Saxon army, after which he wrote Ueber den Krieg, ein philosophischer Versuch (1815). In the autumn of 1814 he was appointed archdeacon of Thomaskirche, Leipsic, and shortly afterward was made pastor of the same church and superintendent of the diocese of Leipsic (1815). In 1818 he was promoted to be second professor and canon of Meissen. Meanwhile the conditions of his country and his church had changed, and he was now obliged to combat not only unbelief and indifference, but the recrudescence of Roman Catholicism and Roman Catholic tendencies arising within the Protestant Church, and especially Pietism. While he planned a work on Der Fall des Heidentums, his interest in contemporary history led him to write Die Sache der Griechen die Sache Europas (1821). But the aims of the Roman Catholic hierarchy engaged his special attention, and he defended the Protestant cause in Protestantismus und Katholicismus aus dem Standpunkte der Politik betracniet (1822); Die Riickkehr katholischer Christen im Grossherzogtum Baden zum evangelischen Christentume (1823); Die Gefahr einer deutschen Revolution (1823); and Zwet Briefe durch die jiingst zu Dresden erschienene Schrift: Die reine katholische Lehre, veranlasst (1826). He also wrote four treatises on the relation of the Church to marriage, urging a revision of marriage law, but rejecting civil marriage; while in his Gutachten wber die Annahme der Preussischen Agende (1824) he advised the rejection of this unsatisfactory liturgy, unless its adoption was expressly recommended, at the same time urging a thorough reform of public worship. Besides two collections of sermons (1812- 1816), Tzschirner wrote Grect et Romani scriptores cur rerum Christianarum raro meminerint (1824-25); De perpetua inter Catholicam et Evangelicam Ecclestam dissentione (1824); De causis impedite in Francogallia sacrorum publicorum emendationis (1827); and De religionis Christiane per philosophiam Grecam propagatione (1827). After his death a number of his writings were edited by his friends: a selection of his sermons from 1817 to 1828 (3 vols., Leipsic, 1828); the first part of the uncompleted Fall des Heidentums (1829); the Vorlesungen tiber die christliche Glaubenslehre (1829); the academic programs under the title Tzschirnert opuscula academica (1829) ; and the unfinished Briefe eines Deutschen an die Herren Chateaubriand, de la Mennais und Montlosier tiber Gegenstinde der Religion und Politik (1828). (P. M. TzScHIRNERT.) BrstiocrapHy: H. G. Tzschirner, Skizze seines Lebens, Leipsic, 1828; J. D. Goldhorn, Mittheilungen aus... H. G. Teschirners . .. Amts- und Lebensjahren, ib. 1828; K. H. ie Politz, 7. G. Tzschirner. Abriss seines Lebens und Wirkens, ib. 1828; J. A. H. Tittmann, Memoria H. G. Tzschirner, ib. 1828; ADB, xxxix. 62 sqq.
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