Bruno Bauer - Biography

Biography

Bauer was the son of a painter in a porcelain factory and his wife at Eisenberg in Saxe-Altenburg, and became one of the great scholars of the 19th century.

Bauer studied at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin from Spring 1828 to Spring 1832. He became associated with the so-called Right Hegelians under Philip Marheineke, who wisely engaged Bauer years later to edit the second edition of Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion 1818-1832. This was to become one of Bauer's best-known works - a brilliant, three-volume, critical edition.

In 1834 he began to teach in Berlin as a licentiate of theology, and in 1839 was transferred to the University of Bonn.

In 1838 he published his Kritische Darstellung der Religion des Alten Testaments (Critical Exhibition of the Religion of the Old Testament) in two volumes. This work showed Bauer was faithful to the Hegelian Rationalist theology that interpreted all miracles in Naturalistic terms.

Consistent with his Hegelian Rationalism, Bauer continued in 1840 with, Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte des Johannes (Critique of the Evangelical History of John). In 1841 Bauer continued his Rationalist theme with, Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte der Synoptiker (Critique of the Evangelical History of the Synoptics).

At no time in his writing was Bauer ever an orthodox Christian. From his earliest days of academic scholarship under GWF Hegel, Bauer exhibited a firm criticism of Kant, and a firm fealty to Hegel's dialectic as well as to Hegel's Rationalist Theology.

Accused of being a so-called "Right Hegelian" (cf. David Strauss, In Defense of My 'Life of Jesus' Against the Hegelians, 1838), he was later accused of being a "Left Hegelian" because of his association, or rather his early leadership, of the Young Hegelians.

From 1839 to 1841, Bauer was a teacher, mentor and close friend of Karl Marx, but in 1841 they came to a break. Marx and Engels had formulated a socialist and communistic program that Bruno Bauer firmly rejected. Marx and Friedrich Engels, in their political aspirations, expressed their break with Bauer in two books: Holy Family (1845) and German Ideology (1846). Yet the labels of 'Left' and 'Right' were only placed on Bruno Bauer by others; never by himself. Bauer considered himself simply a Hegelian.

The Prussian Minister of Education, Altenstein, sent Bauer to the university of Bonn, to protect his Rationalist Theology from the critique of the Berlin orthodox, as well as to win over Bonn University to Hegelianism. Bauer, however, created many enemies at pietist-dominated Bonn university, where he openly taught Rationalism in his new position as professor of theology. Bauer attested in letters during this time that he tried to provoke a scandal, to force the government either to give complete freedom of science and teaching to its university professors, or to openly express its anti-enlightenment position by removing him from his post.

The pro-Hegelian minister Altenstein had died and been replaced by the anti-Hegelian Eichhorn. The government officials asked for advice from the theology departments of its universities. Except for the Hegelian Marheineke, most said that a professor of Protestant theology should not be allowed to teach "atheism" to his priest students. As Bauer was unwilling to compromise his Rationalism, the Prussian government in 1842 revoked his teaching license. After the setbacks of the revolutions of 1848, Bauer left the city. He lived an ascetic and stoic life in the countryside of Rixdorf near Berlin.

Bauer continued to write, including more than nine theological tomes, in twelve lengthy volumes. His lengthy volumes varied between theology, modern history and politics. He published them at his own expense while working at his family's tobacco shop.

Between 1843 and 1845 Bauer published Geschichte der Politik, Kultur und Aufklärung des 18ten Jahrhunderts (History of Politics, Culture and Enlightenment in the 18th Century, in 4 volumes). In 1847 Bauer published Geschichte der französischen Revolution (History of the French Revolution, in 3 volumes).

Between 1850 and 1852 Buaer published Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs (A Critique of the Gospels and a History of their Origin), as well as Kritik der paulinischen Briefe (Critique of the Pauline Epistles). In these works Bauer led the academic movement to subject the Bible to historical and literary criticism.

1n 1877 Bauer published Christus und die Caesaren (Christ and the Caesars), and in 1882 he published Disraelis romantischer und Bismarcks socialistischer Imperialismus (Disraeli's Romanticism and Bismarck's Socialist Imperialism).

Bauer's final book on theology, Christ and the Caesars (1877), was his crowning effort to justify Hegel's position that Christian theology owed at least as much to Greco-Roman classical philosophy as it owed to Judaism.

Bruno Bauer died at Rixdorf in 1882. His younger brother, Edgar, was a German left-wing journalist who had supported his brother's fights and was sent to prison for his political positions. He later became a police spy in London for the Danish government, reporting about Karl Marx, among others.