Schmid, Christian Friedrich

Schmid, Christian Friedrich a professor of theology at Tübingen, was born at Bickelsberg, 1794. Educated at Maulbronn and Tübingen, he began to lecture at the latter place in 1819. In 1826 he became professor in ordinary, and labored as such till his death, in 1852. Not prolific as an author, he has yet exerted a very great and evangelical influence on the clergy of Würtemberg. A supernaturalist from the start, he worked fruitfully by the side of the more negative Baur, defending vigorously the fundamentals of Christianity, and utilizing the better results of modern Christian speculation. Men like Dorner and Oehler have given public expression to their indebtedness to Schmid. His labors embraced practical, exegetical, and moral theology. His lectures were models of systematic Christian thought. He was not, however, simply a scientific theologian, but his influence was also deeply and positively Christian. His Biblische Theologie des neuen Test. appeared in 1853 (4th ed. by Dr. A. Heller, Gotha, 1868); it has enjoyed a wide popularity. His Christliche Moral, by the same editor, was published in 1861. See Erinnerung an C.F. Schmid, by Palmer and others (Tübingen, 1852); Stud. u. Krit. 1856; Wuttke, Christian Ethics. 1, 374; Hauck, Jahresbericht, 1869; Herzog, Real-Encyklop. 13, 604-606. (J.P.L.)