Paul Anton de Lagarde (2 November 1827 – 22 December 1891) was a German
biblical scholar
Biblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse disciplines to the study of the Bible (the Old Testament and New Testament).''Introduction to Biblical Studies, Second Edition'' by Steve Moyise (Oct 27, 2004) pages 11–12 Fo ...
and
orientalist, sometimes regarded as one of the greatest orientalists of the 19th century.
Lagarde's strong support of
anti-Semitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
, vocal opposition to
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
, racial Darwinism and
anti-Slavism
Anti-Slavic sentiment, also known as Slavophobia, a form of racism or xenophobia, refers to various negative attitudes towards Slavic peoples, the most common manifestation is the claim that the inhabitants of Slavic nations are inferior to othe ...
are viewed as having been among the most influential in supporting the ideology of
Nazism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
.
His great learning and gifts were mixed with dogmatism and distrust in the activities of others.
[ In politics, he belonged to the ]Prussian
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...
Conservative party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
. He died in Göttingen
Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...
on 22 December 1891.
Early life and education
De Lagarde was born in Berlin as Paul Bötticher; in early adulthood he legally adopted the family name of his maternal line out of respect for his great-aunt who raised him. At Humboldt University of Berlin
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...
(1844–1846) and University of Halle-Wittenberg
Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (german: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg), also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg and the largest and oldest university i ...
(1846–1847) he studied theology
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
, philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
and Oriental languages
A wide variety of languages are spoken throughout Asia, comprising different language families and some unrelated isolates. The major language families include Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Caucasian, Dravidian, Indo-European, Afroasiatic, Turk ...
.
In 1852 his studies took him to London and Paris.
Career
In 1854 he became a teacher at a Berlin public school, but this did not interrupt his biblical studies. In 1866 he received three years leave of absence to collect fresh materials, and in 1869 succeeded German orientalist and theologian Heinrich Ewald
Georg Heinrich August Ewald (16 November 18034 May 1875) was a German orientalist, Protestant theologian, and Biblical exegete. He studied at the University of Göttingen. In 1827 he became extraordinary professor there, in 1831 ordinary profess ...
as professor of oriental languages at the University of Göttingen
The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...
. Like Ewald, Lagarde was an active worker in a variety of subjects and languages; but his chief aim, the elucidation of the Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
, was almost always kept in view. Lagarde was easily the most renowned Septuagint
The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond th ...
scholar of the nineteenth century, and he devoted himself ardently to Oriental studies
Oriental studies is the academic field that studies Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology. In recent years, the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Middle Eastern studi ...
.
Political interests
Parallel to his academic work, he attempted to establish a German national religion whose most striking manifestations were an aggressive anti-Semitism, anti-slavism and expansionism. He held few concrete religious beliefs at the ready for his postulated national religion as his first political treatise ''Über das Verhältnis des deutschen Staates zu Theologie, Kirche und Religion. Ein Versuch Nicht-Theologen zu orientieren'' (On the Relationship of the German State to Theology, Church and Religion: An Attempted Orientation for Non-Theologians) demonstrates. In regard to the state, he called for its initial and most important task to be to create a climate in which a national religion could flourish. Meanwhile, he obliged those who had faith in God to a radical morality wherein they distinguish solely between "duty or sin" in their every action. In addition, first a formal language must be developed for the religiosity of these newborn men. In the second part of his 1875 book, ''Über die gegenwärtige Lage des deutschen Reichs. Ein Bericht'' (On the Current Situation of the German Reich: A Report), he connected thereto and specified as follows:
The historian Ulrich Sieg classifies his position as follows: "He despised the Christianity that he considered bland and lukewarm and hoped for a folkish religion of the future." Lagarde was conversant with Adolf Stoecker
Adolf Stoecker (December 11, 1835 – February 2, 1909) was a German court chaplain to Kaiser Wilhelm I, a politician, leading antisemite, and a Lutheran theologian who founded the Christian Social Party to lure members away from the S ...
, the founder of the anti-Semitic Berlin Movement
The Berlin movement was an anti-Semitic intellectual and political movement in the German Empire in the 1880s. The movement was a collection of unassociated individuals and organizations.
The movement developed in the aftermath of the Panic of 1 ...
. He also showed interest in folkish-anti-Semitic societies such as the ''Deutscher Volksverein'' of Bernhard Förster
Ludwig Bernhard Förster (31 March 1843 – 3 June 1889) was a German teacher. He was married to Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, the sister of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
Life
Förster became a leading figure in the anti-Semitic ...
and Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg
Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg (21 August 1848 – 17 November 1911) was a German officer who became noted as an anti-Semitic politician and publisher. He was part of a wider campaign against German Jews that became a central feature of national ...
, as well as the ''Deutschsoziale Partei'' of Theodor Fritsch
Theodor Fritsch (born Emil Theodor Fritsche; 28 October 1852 – 8 September 1933), was a German publisher and journalist. His antisemitic writings did much to influence popular German opinion against Jews in the late 19th and early 20th c ...
. To the latter, he established contact in 1886 by sending his treatise ''Die nächsten Pflichten deutscher Politik'' (The Coming Tasks of German Politics), at the core of which he considered to be a German policy of settlement in Eastern Europe. In ''German Writings'', in which he compiled his previously published political essays, there can be found numerous anti-Semitic passages in which we learn, among other things, that he considered Jews to be the greatest barrier to German unification, whereas he simultaneously avowed the concept of a German colonization of southeastern Europe and proposed that the Jewish population settled there at the time be resettled to Palestine or Madagascar
Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...
. The only alternatives for Lagarde were the total assimilation or emigration of the Jews.
In his 1887 essay "Jews and Indo-Germanics", he wrote: “One would have to have a heart of steel to not feel sympathy for the poor Germans and, by the same token, to not hate the Jews, to not hate and despise those who – out of humanity! – advocate for the Jews or are too cowardly to crush these vermin. Trichinella and bacilli would not be negotiated with, trichinella and bacilli would also not be nurtured, they would be destroyed as quickly and as thoroughly as possible."
In addition to his influence on anti-Semitism and anti-slavism, Lagarde is also of importance to the formation of German imperialist thought. In this regard, he concentrated on German border colonization within Europe rather than the acquisition of overseas colonies. This bears a close resemblance to the later concept of German ''Lebensraum
(, ''living space'') is a German concept of settler colonialism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' became a geopolitical goal of Imper ...
'' most notably espoused by Friedrich Ratzel
Friedrich Ratzel (August 30, 1844 – August 9, 1904) was a German geographer and ethnographer, notable for first using the term ''Lebensraum'' ("living space") in the sense that the National Socialists later would.
Life
Ratzel's father was th ...
. In 1875, Lagarde maintained that the primary objective of German politics was the "gradual Germanization of Poland." Since he was concerned about how many Germans emigrated in their search for land, he advocated a border colonizing land acquisition for the peasantry, which he considered the "true foundation of the state." This land acquisition aimed to create a ''Mitteleuropa
(), meaning Middle Europe, is one of the German terms for Central Europe. The term has acquired diverse cultural, political and historical connotations. University of Warsaw, Johnson, Lonnie (1996) ''Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends'p ...
'' under German leadership "that reaches from the Ems to the mouth of the Danube
The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...
, from the Neman
The Neman, Nioman, Nemunas or MemelTo bankside nations of the present: Lithuanian: be, Нёман, , ; russian: Неман, ''Neman''; past: ger, Memel (where touching Prussia only, otherwise Nieman); lv, Nemuna; et, Neemen; pl, Niemen; ...
to Trieste
Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into provi ...
, from Metz to about the Bug."
In his 1918 book, ''The New Europe'', Tomáš Masaryk
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (7 March 185014 September 1937) was a Czechoslovak politician, statesman, sociologist, and philosopher. Until 1914, he advocated restructuring the Austro-Hungarian Empire into a federal state. With the help of ...
regards Lagarde as one of the leading philosophical and theological spokesmen of Pan-Germanism, and furthermore describes Heinrich von Treitschke
Heinrich Gotthard Freiherr von Treitschke (; 15 September 1834 – 28 April 1896) was a German historian, political writer and National Liberal member of the Reichstag during the time of the German Empire. He was an extreme nationalist, who favo ...
as its historian, Wilhelm II
Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 18594 June 1941) was the last German Emperor (german: Kaiser) and King of Prussia, reigning from 15 June 1888 until his abdication on 9 November 1918. Despite strengthening the German Empir ...
as its politician and Friedrich Ratzel
Friedrich Ratzel (August 30, 1844 – August 9, 1904) was a German geographer and ethnographer, notable for first using the term ''Lebensraum'' ("living space") in the sense that the National Socialists later would.
Life
Ratzel's father was th ...
as its geopolitical geographer. In all of them he saw the representatives of the imperialistic "German ''Drang nach Osten
(; 'Drive to the East',Ulrich Best''Transgression as a Rule: German–Polish cross-border cooperation, border discourse and EU-enlargement'' 2008, p. 58, , Edmund Jan Osmańczyk, Anthony Mango, ''Encyclopedia of the United Nations and Interna ...
''" that threatened the Slavic countries.
Legacy
Lagarde's anti-Semitism laid the foundations for aspects of National Socialist
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
ideology, in particular that of Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Ernst Rosenberg ( – 16 October 1946) was a Baltic German Nazi theorist and ideologue. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart and he held several important posts in the Nazi government. He was the head o ...
. He argued that Germany should create a "national" form of Christianity purged of Semitic elements and insisted that Jews were "pests and parasites" who should be destroyed "as speedily and thoroughly as possible".[Stern, Fritz ''The Politics of Cultural Despair: a study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology'', 1961 (see Chapter I, "Paul de Lagarde and a Germanic Religion").] His library now belongs to the New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
.[
]
Works
He edited the '' Didascalia apostolorum syriace'' (1854) and other Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
texts collected in the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
and in Paris. He edited the Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
translation (known as the Targum
A targum ( arc, תרגום 'interpretation, translation, version') was an originally spoken translation of the Hebrew Bible (also called the ''Tanakh'') that a professional translator ( ''mǝturgǝmān'') would give in the common language of the ...
) of the Prophets according to the Codex Reuchlinianus preserved at Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the third-largest city of the German state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. ...
, ''Prophetae chaldaice'' (1872), the ''Hagiographa chaldaice'' (1874), an Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
translation of the Gospels
Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...
, ''Die vier Evangelien, arabisch aus der Wiener Handschrift herausgegeben'' (1864), a Syriac translation of the Old Testament Apocrypha
Apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin. The word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were kept secret because they were the vehicles of esoteric knowledge considered ...
, ''Libri V. T. apocryphi syriace'' (1865), a Coptic
Coptic may refer to:
Afro-Asia
* Copts, an ethnoreligious group mainly in the area of modern Egypt but also in Sudan and Libya
* Coptic language, a Northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century
* Coptic alphabet ...
translation of the Pentateuch
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
, ''Der Pentateuch koptisch'' (1867), and a part of the Lucian
Lucian of Samosata, '; la, Lucianus Samosatensis ( 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer
Pamphleteer is a historical term for someone who creates or distributes pamphlets, unbound (and therefore ...
ic text of the Septuagint
The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond th ...
, which he was able to reconstruct from manuscripts for nearly half the Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
.
Of the Armenians
Armenians ( hy, հայեր, ''hayer'' ) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian highlands of Western Asia. Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the ''de facto'' independent Artsakh. There is a wide-ranging diaspora ...
he published ''Zur Urgeschichte der Armenier'' (1854) and ''Armenische Studien'' (1877). He was also a student of Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
, publishing ''Isaias persice'' (1883) and ''Persische Studien'' (1884). In 1880, de Lagarde attempted to reconstruct a Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
version of Epiphanius' treatise, ''On Weights and Measures
''On Weights and Measures'' is a historical, lexical, metrological, and geographical treatise compiled in 392 AD in Constantia by Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 315–403). The greater part of the work is devoted to a discussion on Greek and Roma ...
'', which he entitled, ''Veteris Testamenti ab Origene recensiti fragmenta apud Syros servata quinque. Praemittitur Epiphanii de mensuris et ponderibus liber nunc primum integer et ipse syriacus'' (Gootingae 1880). He followed up his Coptic studies with ''Aegyptiaca'' (1883), and published many minor contributions to the study of oriental languages in ''Gesammelte Abhandlungen'' (1866), ''Symmicta'' (1. 1877, ii. 1880), ''Semitica'' (i. 1878, ii. 1879), ''Orientalia'' (1879–1880) and ''Mittheilungen'' (1884). Mention should also be made of the valuable ''Onomastica sacra'' (1870; 2nd ed., 1887).
He edited:
*
*
In ''Deutsche Schriften'' (1878–81; 4th ed., Göttingen, 1903), he attempted to involve himself in politics.[ It deals with the position of the German state relative to theology, the church and religion.] It became a nationalist text.
Notes
References
* This work in turn cites:
** Herzog-Hauck, ''Realencyklopädie''
** Anna de Lagarde, ''Paul de Lagarde'' (1894)
Further reading
* Heike Behlmer, Thomas L. Gertzen and Orell Witthuhn. ''Der Nachlass Paul de Lagarde. Orientalistische Netzwerke und antisemitische Verflechtungen. De Gruyter Oldenbourg. Europäisch-jüdische Studien - Beiträge,'' 46. De Gruyter (2020) - https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/540282?format=G&rskey=qGGhF5&result=1 and DOI: 10.1515/9783110615463
* Ulrich Sieg, ''Deutschlands Prophet. Paul de Lagarde und die Ursprünge des modernen Antisemitismus'' (München, Carl Hanser 2007).
* Fritz Stern
Fritz Richard Stern (February 2, 1926 – May 18, 2016) was a German-born American historian of German history, Jewish history and historiography. He was a University Professor and a provost at New York's Columbia University. His work focused o ...
, ''The Politics of Cultural Despair'' (1961).
External links
Collection of Lagarde's writings at Archive.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lagarde, Paul de
1827 births
1891 deaths
Writers from Berlin
German biblical scholars
Christian Hebraists
German orientalists
German nationalists
Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences
History of Madagascar
People from the Province of Brandenburg
Syriacists
Humboldt University of Berlin alumni
Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg alumni
Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg faculty
University of Göttingen faculty
German male non-fiction writers