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Edmond Henri Adolphe Scherer

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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EDMOND HENRI ADOLPHE SCHERER (1815-1889), French theologian, critic and politician, was born in Paris on the 8th of April 1815. After a course of legal studies he spent several years in theological study at Strassburg, where he graduated doctor in theology in 1843, and was ordained. In 1843 he was appointed to a professorship in the Ecole Evangelique at Geneva, but the development of his opinions in favour of the Liberal movement in Protestant theology led to his resigning the post six years later. He founded the Anti-Jesuite, afterwards the Reformation au XIX' siecle, in which he advocated the separation of the Church from the State; but he gradually abandoned Protestant doctrine. In thought he became a pronounced Hegelian. Eventually he settled in Paris, where he at once attracted attention by brilliant literary criticisms, at first chiefly on great foreign writers, contributed to the Revue des deux mondes. He was elected municipal councillor at Versailles in 1870, deputy to the National Assembly for the department of Seine-et-Oise in 1871 and senator in 1875. He supported the Republican party. Towards the end of his life he devoted himself mainly to literary and general criticism, and was for many years one of the ablest contributors to He was a frequent visitor to England, and took a lively interest in English politics and literature. He died at Versailles on the 16th of March 1889.

His chief works are: Dogmatique de l'Eglise reformee (1843), De l'etat actuel de l'Eglise reformee en France (1844), Esquisse dune theorie de l'Eglise chretienne (1845), La Critique et la foi (1850), Alexandre Vinet (1853), Lettres a mon cure (1853), Etudes critiques sur la litterature contemporaine (1863-1889), Etudes critiques de litterature (1876), Diderot (1880), La Democratie et la France (1883), Etudes sur la litterature XVIII° siècle (1891).

A memoir of him, by V. C. O. Greard, appeared in 1890. See also an article by Professor E. Dowden in the Fortnightly Review (April 1889).