Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider

Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider (February 11, 1776 in Gersdorf, Saxony – January 22, 1848 in Gotha, Thuringia) was a German Protestant scholar and theologian from Gersdorf, Saxony. He is noted for, among other things, having planned and founded the monumental Corpus Reformatorum.

In 1794 he entered the University of Leipzig, where he studied theology for four years. After some years of hesitation he resolved to be ordained, and in 1802 he passed with great distinction the examination for candidatus theologiae, and attracted the regard of Franz Volkmar Reinhard (1753–1812), author of the System der christlichen Moral (1788–1815), then court-preacher at Dresden, who became his warm friend and patron during the remainder of his life.

From 1804 to 1806 Bretschneider was Privatdozent at the University of Wittenberg, where he lectured on philosophy and theology. During this time he wrote his work on the development of dogma, Systematische Entwicklung aller in der Dogmatik vorkommenden Begriffe nach den symbolischen Schriften der evangelisch-lutherischen und reformirten Kirche (1805, 4th ed. 1841), which was followed by others, including an edition of Sirach with a Latin commentary.

On the advance of the French army under Napoleon into Prussia, he determined to leave Wittenberg and abandon his university career. Through the good offices of Reinhard, he became pastor of Schneeberg in Saxony (1807). In 1808 he was promoted to the office of superintendent of the church of Annaberg, in which capacity he had to decide, in accordance with the Canon law of Saxony, many matters belonging to the department of ecclesiastical law. But the climate did not agree with him, and his official duties interfered with his theological studies. With a view to a change he took the degree of doctor of theology in Wittenberg in August 1812. In 1816 he was appointed general superintendent at Gotha, where he remained until his death. This was the great period of his literary activity.

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