RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Vogtherr Volney
Zoéckler’s Kurzgefasster Kommentar (Munich, 1889); supervised the eighth, ninth, and tenth editions of Gesenius’ lexicon of the Old Testament (Leipsic, 1878-86); edited J. C. K. von Hofmann’s Die heilige Schrift Neuen Testaments (3 parts, Nordlingen, 1881-86) and the theological correspondence of F. Delitzsch and Von Hofmann (Leipsic, 1893). During his later years at Dorpat he also wrote Was lernen wir aus der Geschichte der Auslegung der heiligen Schrift? (Dorpat, 1894); Heilige Schrift und Kritik (Erlangen, 1897); and Die Urgeschichte nach Gen. 1-11 (Barmen, 1897).
In 1898, in accordance with the university statutes, Volck was retired. He accepted an honorary professorship at Greifswald, but was called to Rostock in 1900, where he labored until his death. To this final period belong his Alttestamentliche Heilsgeschichte (Giitersloh, 1902); Zum Kampf um Bibel und Babel (Rostock, 1903); and the posthumous Lebens- und Zeitfragen im Lichte der Bibel (ed. Hunzinger, Wismar, 1906).
The theological position of Volek remained essentially the same throughout his life. He was antagonistic to the Wellhausen school while in sympathy with honest and unprejudiced historical criticism of the Old Testament. He regarded the Bible as an organic whole from beginning to end, held together by the bond of the divine outworking of the plan of salvation, and attested by its influence on the history of the Church and on the personal religious life of the faithful. (J. KOBERLET.) BisitiocrapHy: Zum Gedichtnis an Prof. Dr. Wilhelm
Volck, Leipsic, 1904.
VOLF, volf, PETER RUDOLF: Danish clergyman; b. at Naur (162 m. n.w. of Copenhagen) Aug. 25, 1838. He was graduated from the gymnasium in Odense, 1857, and from the University of Copenhagen, 1864. As a student he was attracted to Semitic philology and was awarded, in 1861, an “* Accessit ’’ for a prize essay in this branch. It was also in his student days that he perceived the necessity of energetic missionary work in the large, partly dechristianized cities. The keynote in his scientific career became Old-Testament research; in his practical work, home missions. In 1859 he traveled in England, and in the year following published a translation from the works of the Scotch Free Church theologian Thomas Guthrie (q.v.): Hovedstaden, dens Synder og Sorger. After teaching some years in the Danish School for Missions, he was chaplain in Ballerup-Maalev, 1867-70; and in Farum-Varlése, 1870-74. But his greatest labors are connected with the Church of St. Stephen in Copenhagen, whose pastor he was, 1874-99. He gained the confidence of the poor and was instrumental in calling forth many congregational activities, up to that time little known in Copenhagen—the parish mission, Princess Thyras Asylum, the Martha Society, and the ‘‘ Carmel ”’ hall for home missions. He was member of the board for home missions, 1878-99, and for a long time its president.
During these years of practical activity he was not, however, forgetful of theology proper. In 1875 he was made Lic. theol., having presented his thesis on the “ Integrity of the Book of Zechariah.” He subsequently lectured for some semesters at the Uni-
versity of Copenhagen, and was member of the censor committee on examination of candidates for the theological degree. In 1888 he was given by the University of Rostock the degree of Th.D. for the dissertation Die 70. Wochen Daniels. He wrote a learned commentary on Zechariah, and popular expositions of Isaiah, Hosea, and Joel (1902). He is author also of Indre Missions Historie (1870); and of biographies of Johann Heinrich Wichern and Johann Albrecht Bengel (1904). His attitude to civil marriage and marriage of the divorced, both muchdiscussed questions in State churches, as well as his conception of a church are made known in his Aigtesskabsskilsmisse og fraskiltes Vielse (1885); T'ér Kirken énske borgerlig Aigteforening (1902); and Folkekirken, dens Begreb, Opgave og Forfatning i korte Hovedtrek (1901). Since 1899 he has been provost in Storehedinge. Joun O. Evsen. Brsuiocrapuy: C. F. Bricka, Dansk biographisk Lexikon,
xix. 154-155, 19 vols., Copenhagen, 1887-1905.
VOLIVA, WILBUR GLENN: Christian Catholic Apostolic; b. near Newtown, Fountain Co., Ind., Mar. 10, 1870. He was educated at Hiram College, Hiram, O., at Union Christian College, Merom, Ind. (B.D., 1897), and later studied theology privately at Stanfordville, N. Y. (1893-94). He was ordained to the ministry in the Christian Connection (New Light) denomination in 1889, and held pastorates at Linden, Ind. (1889-92), and Urbana, III. (1892-93), after which he was supply in Albany, N. Y. (1893- 1894), and York Harbor, Me. (1894-95). He united with the Christian (Campbellite) Church in 1895, and was pastor of the Christian church at Washington Court House, O., in 1897-99, but in the latter year joined the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion, and was elder in charge of North Side Zion Tabernacle, Chicago (1899-1900), whence he was transferred to Cincinnati (1900-01). In 1901-06 he was overseer of the work of his denomination in Australia, but in the latter year returned to Zion City, IIll., as assistant to J. A. Dowie (q.v.), on whose death, in 1907, he became general overseer of the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church.
VOLNEY, CONSTANTIN-FRANCOIS CHASSE- BUF, COMTE DE: French historian; b. at Craon (168 m. s.w. of Paris) Feb. 3, 1757; d. at Paris Apr. 25, 1820. After several years’ traveling in the East he wrote his Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie (2 vols., Paris, 1787; Eng. transl., Travels through Syria and Egypt in 1783, 1784, and 1785, 2 vols., London, 1787, also 1788, and New York, 1798), which earned a great reputation for him; and in 1794 he was made professor of history in the normal school of Paris. As a man of the Revolution, he became a senator in 1794, but was accused of royalism and imprisoned under Robespierre, whom he opposed. His life was saved by the ending of the Revolution. Later, as an adversary of Napoleon, he was made a peer of France in 1814. In literature he is known also as the author of a number of antichristian or antireligious writings: Les Ruines (Paris, 1791, often reprinted, and translated into several foreign languages; into English, The Ruins: or, a Survey of the Revolutions of Empires, London, 1795, and often,
Voltaire