Zeller, EDUARD, theologian, and the historian of Greek philosophy, was born at Kleinbottwar in Württemberg, January 22, 1814, studied at Tübingen and Berlin, and settled at Tübingen in 1840 as privat-docent in theology. In spite of the strenuous opposition of the more orthodox party he became professor of Theology at Bern in 1847, and at Marburg in 1849, whence he was called to the chair of Philosophy at Heidelberg in 1862, at Berlin in 1872. Perhaps the ablest of the direct disciples of his father-in-law Baur, he forsook theology and his early Hegelianism for historical work which he has carried on in a most impartial and eclectic spirit.
Of his writings the following are the most important: Platonische Studien (1839), Die Philosophie der Griechen (3 vols. 1844-52; 4th ed. 5 vols. 1876-81), Das theologische System Zwinglis (1853), Die Apostelgeschichte kritisch untersucht (1854; Eng. trans. 2 vols. 1875-76), Vorträge und Abhandlungen (1865; 2d ed. 1875-77-84), Staat und Kirche (1873), David Friedrich Strauss (1874), Geschichte der Deutschen Philosophie seit Leibnitz (1872), Friedrich der Grosse als Philosoph (1886), Grundriss d. Gesch. d. Griech. Philosophie (1883; Eng. trans. 1886). His magistral work on Greek philosophy was translated into English in the following divisions: Socrates and the Socratic Schools (1868); Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics (1870); Plato and the Older Academy (1876); The Pre-Socratic Philosophy (2 vols. 1881); The Eleatics (1883); Aristotle (1897).