Heinrich Ewald - Life

Life

Ewald was born at Göttingen where his father was a linen weaver. In 1815 he was sent to the gymnasium, and in 1820 he entered the University of Göttingen, where he studied with J.G. Eichhorn and T. C. Tychsen, specialising in oriental languages. At the close of his academic studies in 1823 he was appointed to a mastership in the gymnasium at Wolfenbüttel, and made a study of the oriental manuscripts in the Wolfenbüttel library. But in the spring of 1824 he was recalled to Göttingen as repentant, or theological tutor, and in 1827 (the year of Eichhorn's death) he became professor extraordinarius in philosophy and lecturer in Old Testament exegesis. Heinrich Ewald married in 1830 Wilhelmina (1808–1846), daughter of C.F. Gauss. Of all of Gauss' children, Wilhelmina was said to have come closest to her father's talent, but regrettably, she died young. In 1831 Heinrich Ewald was promoted to professor ordinarius in philosophy; in 1833 he became a member of the Royal Scientific Society, and in 1835, after Tychsen's death, he entered the faculty of theology, taking the chair of Oriental languages.

Two years later occurred the first important episode in Ewald's studious life. In 1837, on 18 November, along with six of his colleagues he signed a formal protest against the action of King Ernst August in abolishing the liberal constitution of 1833, which had been granted to the House of Hanover by his predecessor William IV. This bold procedure of the seven professors led to their speedy expulsion from the university (14 December). Early in 1838 Ewald received a call to Tübingen, and there for upwards of ten years he held a chair as professor ordinarius, first in philosophy and afterwards, from 1841, in theology. To this period belong some of his most important works, and also the commencement of his bitter feud with F.C. Baur and the Tübingen school. In 1847, "the great shipwreck-year in Germany," as he has called it, he was invited back to Göttingen on honourable terms—the liberal constitution having been restored. He gladly accepted the invitation.

In 1862-1863 Ewald took an active part in a movement for reform within the Hanoverian Church, and he was a member of the synod which passed the new constitution. He had an important share also in the formation of the Protestantenverein, or Protestant association, in September 1863. But the chief crisis in his life arose out of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. His loyalty to King George V of Hanover (son of Ernst August) would not permit him to take the oath of allegiance to the victorious King William I of Prussia, and he was therefore placed on the retired list, though with the full amount of his salary as pension.

This degree of severity might have been held by the Prussian authorities to be unnecessary, had Ewald been less hostile in his language. The violent tone of some of his printed manifestoes about this time, especially of his Lob des Königs u. des Volkes, led to his being deprived of the venia legendi (1868) and also to a criminal process, which, however, resulted in his acquittal (May 1869). Then, and on two subsequent occasions, he was returned by the city of Hanover as a member of the North German and German parliaments. In June 1874 he was found guilty of a libel on Otto von Bismarck, whom he had compared to Frederick the Great in "his unrighteous war with Austria and his ruination of religion and morality," to Napoleon III in his way of "picking out the best time possible for robbery and plunder." For this offence he was sentenced to undergo three weeks' imprisonment. He died in his 72nd year, of heart disease.