to Hegel, it was not the subjective spirit of the individual person, but only the objective Spirit, the self-realising Idea which constantly embodies itself in new creations, to which immortality belongs.[1]
In October 1831 he went to Berlin to hear Hegel and Schleiermacher. On the 14th of November Hegel, whom he had visited shortly before, was carried off by cholera. Strauss heard the news in Schleiermacher's house, from Schleiermacher himself, and is said to have exclaimed, with a certain want of tact, considering who his informant was: "And it was to hear him that I came to Berlin!"
There was no satisfactory basis for a relationship between Schleiermacher and Strauss. They had nothing in common. That did not prevent Strauss's Life of Jesus being sometimes described by opponents of Schleiermacher as a product of the latter's philosophy of religion. Indeed, as late as the 'sixties, Tholuck thought it necessary to defend the memory of the great theologian against this reproach.
As a matter of fact, the plan of the Life of Jesus arose during Strauss's intercourse with Vatke, to whom he felt himself strongly drawn. Moreover, what was first sketched out was not primarily the plan of a Life of Jesus, but that of a history of the ideas of primitive Christianity, intended to serve as a standard by which to judge ecclesiastical dogma. The Life of Jesus was originally designed, it might almost be said, as a mere prologue to this work, the plan of which was subsequently carried out under the title, "Christian Theology in its Historical Development and in its Antagonism with Modern Scientific Knowledge" (published in 1840-1841).
When in the spring of 1832 he returned to Tubingen to take up the position of "Repetent"[2] in the theological college (Stift), these plans were laid on the shelf in consequence of his preoccupation with philosophy, and if things had gone according to Strauss's wishes, they would perhaps never have come to fulfilment. The "Repetents" had the right to lecture upon philosophy. Strauss felt himself called upon to come forward as an apostle of Hegel, and lectured upon Hegel's logic with tremendous success. Zeiler, who attended these lectures, records the unforgettable impression which they made on him. Besides championing Hegel, Strauss also lectured upon Plato, and upon the hiiitory of modern philosophy. These were three happy semesters.
"In my theology," he writes in a letter of 1833,[3] "philosophy occupies such a predominant position that my theological views can only be worked out to completeness by means of a more thorough study of phi- losophy, and this course of study I am now
