Preuschen, Erwin Friedrich Wilhelm Ferdinand

PREUSCHEN, ERWIN FRIEDRICH WILHELM FERDINAND: German Protestant; b. at Lissberg (not far from Frankfort), Hesse, Jan. 8, 1867. He was educated at the University of Giessen (lic. theol., 1891), and after being an assistant to A. Harnack at Berlin in the preparation of his Bestand der altchristlichen Literatur (1891–93); held various pastorates in Hesse-Darmstadt until 1897; was a teacher in a gymnasium at Darmstadt (1897–1907), where lie was appointed professor in 1907. In theology he holds that "an investigation of the original form of Christianity as an absolute religion is the only justifiable foundation of theological activity and Christian knowledge, such an investigation to be uninfluenced by philosophical categories and ecclesiastical dogmas." He has written Analekta, kürzere Texte zur Geschichte der alten Kirche and des Kanons (Freiburg, 1893); Palladius und Rufinus (Giessen, 1897); Antilegomena, die Reste der ausserkanonischen Evangelien and urchristlichen Ueberlieferungen (1901); Zwei gnostische Hymnen (1904); Leitfaden der biblischen Geographie (1904); Kirchengeschichte für die deutsche Familie (Reutlingen, 1905); and Vollständiges griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch zu den Schriften des N. T. (Giessen, 1908 sqq.). He has also edited Tertullian's De pœnitentia et de pudicitia. (Freiburg, 1891) and De præscriptione hæreticorum (1892), as well as Origin's commentary on St. John (Leipsic, 1903), while in 1900 he founded the Zeitschrift fur die neutestamentlichte Wissenschaft, of which he has since been the editor. He has translated E. Hatch's Greek Ideas and Usages, their Influence upon the Christian Church (London, 1890) under the title Griechentum und Christentum (Freiburg, 1892) and the Armenian version of the sixth and seventh books of the church history of Eusebius (Leipsic, 1902).