Richard Rothe

Richard Rothe (28 January 1799 – 20 August 1867) was a German Lutheran theologian.

Richard Rothe was born at Posen, then part of Prussia. He studied theology in the universities of Heidelberg and Berlin (1817–20) under Karl Daub, Schleiermacher and Neander, the philosophers and historians G. W. F. Hegel, Friedrich Creuzer and F. C. Schlosser exercising a considerable influence in shaping his thought. From 1820 to 1822 he was in the clerical seminary at Wittenberg. In the autumn of 1823 he was appointed chaplain to the Kingdom of Prussia embassy in Rome, of which Baron Bunsen was the head. This post he exchanged in 1828 for a professorship in the Wittenberg theological seminary, of which in 1832 he became also second director and ephorus, and hence in 1837 he removed to Heidelberg as professor and director of a new clerical seminary; in 1849 he accepted an invitation to Bonn as professor and university preacher, but in 1854 he returned to Heidelberg as professor of theology, and afterwards became a member of the Oberkirchenrath, a position he held until his death. He died in Heidelberg.

As a youth Rothe had a bent towards a supernatural mysticism; his chosen authors were those of the romantic school, and Novalis remained throughout his life a special favourite. In Berlin and Wittenberg he came under the influence of Pietism as represented by such men as Rudolf Stier and Friedrich Tholuck, though Tholuck pronounced him a "very modern Christian." He afterwards confessed that, though he had been a sincere Pietist, he was never a happy one. In Rome, under the broadening influence of classical and ecclesiastical art, he learned to look at Christianity in its human and universalistic aspects, and began to develop his great idea, the inseparable relation of religion and morals. He began then, and particularly after the revolution of July 1830, likewise to give a more definite form to his peculiar view of the relations of church and state. He thus became out of harmony with the pietistic thought and life of Wittenberg. His removal to Heidelberg and the publication of his first important work, Die Anfänge der christlichen Kirche und ihrer Verfassung (1837), coincide with the attainment of the principal theological positions with which his name is associated. During the middle period of his career (1837–61) he led the life of a scholastic recluse. During the last six years of his life he came forward as the advocate of a free theology and of the Protestantenverein.

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