Christian Thomasius

Jurist

• Born: January 1, 1655
• Birthplace: Leipzig, Germany
• Died: September 23, 1728

Biography

Christian Thomasius was born in Leipzig in 1655. Thomasius’s father was professor of philosophy and rhetoric at the University of Leipzig and director of two high schools in Leipzig. Thomasius’s mother died in 1663 during the birth of Thomasius’s younger brother. Thomasius started attending the University of Leipzig in 1669 and because he was so well educated, he earned his baccalaureate degree in less than a year. He went on to receive a master’s degree in 1672 and a doctorate in jurisprudence from the University of Frankfurt in 1769, when he was twenty-four years old. The fact that his father was a prominent educator may have contributed to Thomasius’s status as a scholarly prodigy.

Tempering Thomasius’s substantial intellect was the young academic’s yearning for answers to questions about individual freedoms and the need to question authority. Thomasius was inspired by the writings of Samuel Pufendorf, who extolled students to think for themselves. Thomasius traveled to Holland after completing his degrees. After Thomasius returned to Leipzig, he started a law practice and began to lecture at the university. In 1687, Thomasius delivered a lecture titled Christian Thomasius eröffnet der Studierenden Jugend zu Leipzig in einem Discours welcher Gestalt man denen Frantzosen in gemeinem Leben und Wandel nachahmen sole? In it, Thomasius argued that Germans should imitate the French love for the French language. In a shocking move to the university establishment, Thomasius lectured in German, not the traditional Latin. The next year, 1688, Thomasius started the first German-language academic journal, Monatsgespräche.

Thomasius called for religious tolerance and developed a reputation as an iconoclast, offending the Leipzig academic elite. His challenges to the Lutheran orthodoxy earned him charges of heresy and atheism. His defense of Lutheran priest August Hermann Francke further alienated Thomasius from the academic and religious establishment. By 1690, Thomasius had obtained an order from the Dresden court rescinding his teaching appointment and publishing rights. Pufendorf had counseled Thomasius that such retribution could result from his ideas and writings.

Thomasius sought protection from Friedrich III of Brandenburg and secured a teaching post in Halle, in the Brandenburg state. In 1694, Thomasius was instrumental in founding the University of Halle. Halle became a liberal haven for non-Lutheran protestant students as well as foreign students. Thomasius’s popularity was owed in part to his views that students should question authority. He ridiculed teachers for requiring students to learn frivolous information. Perhaps the most modern of Thomasius’s views was his belief that female students should be educated at the university level. These views made him something of an academic populist.

In 1692, Thomasius published Von der Kunst vernünftig und tugendhaft zu lieben, als dem eintzigen Mittel zu einem glückseligem, galanten und vergnügten Leben zu gelangen: Oder, Einleitung der Sitten-Lehre, the first important German book about ethics. He condemned witch trials in his book Theses de crimine magiae (1701). Thomasius denied that witch trials held legal standing since they dealt with a supposed spiritual entity, which Thomasius argued could not influence a human being. Thomasius died in 1728, the same year the last person charged with witchcraft was put to death in Prussia.