Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Wilhelm Abraham Teller

TELLER, Wilhelm Abraham (1734-1804), was the son of the Leipsic clergyman, Romanus Teller, who edited the earlier volumes of the Englisches Bibelwerk (in 19 vols., 1749-70), an adaptation for German readers of the exegetical works of Willet, Ainsworth, Patrick, Poole, Henry, and others. Teller was born at Leipsic on 9th January 1734, and studied philosophy and theology in the university there. Amongst the men whose influence mainly determined his theological position and line of work was J. A. Ernesti. His writings present rationalism in its course of development from Biblical supernaturalism to the borders of deistical naturalism. His first learned production was a Latin translation of Kennicott’s Dissertation on the State of the Printed Hebrew Text of the Old Testament (1756), which was followed the next year by an essay in which he expounded his own critical principles. In 1761 he was appointed pastor and professor of theology in the university of Helmstädt. Here he pursued his exegetical, theological, and historical researches, the results of which appeared in his Lehrbuch des christlichen Glaubens (1764). This work threw the entire theological world into commotion, as much by the novelty of its method as by the heterodoxy of its matter, and more by its omissions than by its positive teaching, though everywhere the author seeks to put theological doctrines in a decidedly modern form. In consequence of the storm of indignation the book provoked, Teller eagerly accepted an invitation from the Prussian cultus minister to the post of prebendary of Köln on the Spree, with a seat in the Berlin consistory (1767). Here he found himself in the company of the rationalistic theologians of Prussia — Sack, Spalding, and others—and became one of the leaders of the rationalistic party, and one of the chief contributors to Nicolai’s Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek. Teller was not long in making use of his freer position in Berlin. In 1772 appeared the most popular of his books, Worterbuch zum Neuen Testament (6th ed., 1805). The object of this work is to recast the language and ideas of the New Testament and give them the form of 18th-century illuminism. Thus Heb. xiii. 8 signifies the permanence of Christ’s teaching, and, as the New Testament has no word for Christianity, "Christ" may mean sometimes His person and at others His doctrine or the Christian religion ; Col. i. 15 signifies the priority of Christ to all other Christians. By this lexicon Teller had put himself amongst the most advanced rationalists, and his opponents charged him with the design of overthrowing positive Christianity altogether. The edict of Wöllner (1788), and Teller’s manly action as consistorialrath in defiance of it, led the Prussian Government to pass upon him the sentence of suspension for three months, with forfeiture of his stipend. He was not, however, to be moved by such means, and (1792) issued his work Die Religion der Vollkommeneren, an exposition of his theological position, in which he advocated at length the idea, subsequently often urged, of "the perfectibility of Christianity,"—that is, of the ultimate transformation of Christianity into a scheme of simple morality, with a complete rejection of all specifically Christian ideas and methods. This book represents the culminating point of German illuminism, and is separated by a long process of development from the author’s Lehrbuch, Teller died on 9th December 1804. In addition to the above works he wrote Anleitung zur Religion überhaupt und zum Allgemeinen des Christenthums insbesondere (1792); and, besides his contributions to the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek, he edited a popular and practically useful Magazin für Prediger (1792-1801).

See Gass, Geschichte der protestantischen Dogmatik, iv. pp. 206-222; Tholuck, art. "Teller," in Herzog-Plitt’s ; Realencykl.; Döring, Deutsche Kanzelredner des 18ten und 19ten Jahrh., p. 506 sq.; Pusey, Causes of the Late Rationalistic Character of German Theology (1828), p. 150.