Julius Wegscheider

Julius August Ludwig Wegscheider (27 September 1771 – 27 January 1849), was a German Protestant theologian.

Wegscheider was born at Küblingen (now a part of Schöppenstedt, Lower Saxony). He studied theology at the University of Helmstedt, where he was a pupil of Heinrich Philipp Konrad Henke. From 1795 to 1805, he worked as a tutor to the family of a wealthy Hamburg merchant. In 1805 he presented a dissertation titled Graecorum mysteriis religioni non obtrudendis at the University of Göttingen. He then served as a professor of theology at the University of Rinteln (1806–1810), and at the University of Halle from 1810 onwards.¹

Wegscheider was a leading figure of dogmatic theological rationalism—for instance, he considered supernatural revelation to be an impossibility.² Because of his rationalist teachings, he, along with his colleague Wilhelm Gesenius, were attacked by followers of Supernaturalism, creating a situation that led to a government investigation (1830).³ Ultimately, he retained his office at Halle, but lost his former influence.⁴

• Über die von der neuesten Philosophie geforderte Trennung der Moral von der Religion, 1804 – On the latest philosophy requiring separation of morality from religion.
• Versuch einer vollständigen Einleitung in das Evangelium Johannis, 1806 – Attempt of a complete introduction to the Gospel of John.
• Institutiones theologicae dogmaticae, 1815; to which Wilhelm Steiger's Kritik des Rationalismus in Wegscheiders Dogmatik (1830) was a reply.⁴

• "Leben und Werk des Hallenser Theologen Julius Wegscheider (1771–1849) : mit unveröffentlichten Briefen an Eduard Reuss"; by Jean Marcel Vincent, Waltrop : Spenner, 1997. Series: Wissen und Kritik, Bd. 13.⁵