Strauss, DAVID FRIEDRICH, author of the famous Leben Jesu, was born on the 27th January 1808, at Ludwigsburg in Württemberg. His education was begun in his native town, and completed in the theological seminaries of Blaubeuren and Tübingen. In 1830, his head filled with Hegel's philosophy and Schleiermacher's theology, he entered on the simple life of a country pastor; but already in the following year he was in Maulbronn acting as professor in the seminary, and went thence to Berlin for six months to continue his Hegelian studies, and hear the lectures of Schleiermacher. Returning to Tübingen in 1832, he became repetent in the theological seminary, and in the next years held also philosophical lectures in the university as a disciple of Hegel. Known as yet only to a narrow circle, he became all at once a man of mark by the publication, in 1835, of his Life of Jesus critically treated (2 vols. Tübl.; 4th ed. 1840; Eng. trans. by George Eliot, 1846). In this work he applied to the New Testament the method which had already worked havoc with the old legends of Greece and Rome, and which De Wette had to some extent applied to the Old Testament. Strauss attempted to prove the received gospel history to be a collection of myths gradually formed in the early Christian communities, and sought by an analytical dissection of each separate narrative to detect, where it existed, a nucleus of historical truth free from every trace of supernaturalism. The facts of the gospels were mere myths like those of the early Roman historians; no miracle, prophecy, or incarnation was left; the Christ of faith was a mere idea or group of ideas (see MIRACLES). The book made a real epoch in theological literature, and produced a violent excitement in and out of Germany, calling forth numberless replies from opponents, frightening many by its bold disregard of consequences back into the ranks of orthodoxy, and stirring up others to similar investigations. The first consequence to the author was his dismissal from his academical position in Tübingen, and transference to the Lyceum of Ludwigsburg. He resigned the new post, however, very soon in 1836, and retired into private life at Stuttgart, to have leisure to defend himself. In 1837 he published his Streitschriften against his opponents; and in 1838 Zwei friedliche Blätter, a more conciliatory exposition of his views. Early in 1839 he was called by the Board of Education in Zurich to be professor of Dogmatics and Church History in the university; but the step raised such a storm of opposition amongst the public that the proposition had to be dropped (he receiving a pension of 1000 francs), and even the cantonal government had to resign in the same year.
Thrown back on literary labour, Strauss, who had published during the year his Charakteristiken und Kritiken, sent forth shortly afterwards his second great work, Die Christliche Glaubenslehre, a review of Christian dogma 'in its historical development and its struggle with modern science' (1840-41). This formed a natural sequel to the purely critical investigation of the origins of Christianity in the first work. When Strauss, after a long period of silence, next appeared on the literary field it was no longer as a professed theologian. In 1847 he drew attention by a work entitled Der Romantiker auf dem Throne der Cäsaren, in which a parallel was drawn between the orthodox William IV. of Prussia and Julian the Apostate, as having both attempted to restore dead religions. His fellow-townsmen put him forward as a candidate for the German revolutionary parliament of 1848, but he was unable to stand against the clerical influence brought to bear upon the country-people of the district. His speeches on this occasion were published under the title of Six Theologico-political Popular Addresses, and his native place compensated the defeat by sending him as its representative to the Württemberg Diet. From this position, however, when he unexpectedly displayed conservative leanings, and incurred a vote of censure from his constituents, he retired before the end of the year. In this period he also issued lives of the Swabian poet Schubart (1849) and of his college-friend Christian Märklin (1851); and a work on the old Swabian humanist Frischlin (1855). His third period of activity was opened in 1858 by a remarkable life of Ulrich von Hutten (Eng. trans. 1874), followed up by the publication of Hutten's Dialogues in 1860, a work on Reimarus (1862), and a series of brilliant lectures on Voltaire (1870). A new Life of Jesus, composed for the German People, appeared in 1864 (Eng. trans. 1865), in which the mythical theory was retained, but prefaced by a critical examination of the gospels (some historical value being allowed to Matthew), and an attempt made to reconstruct a positive life of Christ. Der Christus des Glaubens (1865) is a criticism of the lectures of Schleiermacher on the life of Jesus, and Die Halben und die Ganzen a brochure directed against Schenkel and Hengstenberg. In 1872 he published his last work, Der alte und der neue Glaube, in which he endeavours to prove that Christianity as a system of religious belief is practically dead, that there is no conscious or personal God, and that a new faith must be built up out of art and the scientific knowledge of nature. Strauss died at Ludwigsburg, 8th February 1874. In 1841 he had married the opera-singer, Agnese Schebest (1813-70), but some years after they separated. The literary, critical, and polemical powers of Strauss were unquestionably of a very high order; no more effective German prose than his has been written since Lessing.
A collected edition of Strauss's works was published in 12 vols. (including one of poems), edited by Zeller, in 1876-78. The Life by Zeller (1874) was translated the same year: and there are works by Hausrath (2 vols. 1876-78) and Schlottmann (1878).