Bauer. I. Bruno, a German critic and theologian, born at Eisenberg, Sept. 6, 1809. Educated in Berlin, he became in 1834 a teacher at the university there. He was then a Hegelian philosopher of the old school. In 1835 he severely criticised Strauss's "Life of Jesus," proposing to reconcile the free action of reason with the Christian revelation, which, in common with Hegel, he regarded as a gradual self-revelation of human reason. This position he abandoned in 1839. In that year he was transferred to Bonn, but in 1842, on account of the rationalistic boldness displayed in his writings and lectures, was deprived of permission to give public instruction. He then returned to Berlin and devoted himself entirely to historical and critical publications. In these writings he asserts that the gospels, as well as the Acts of the Apostles and the principal epistles of Paul, are fictions, written during the 2d century with a view to account for the rapid spread of Christianity at a time when the original history of its establishment had already fallen into obscurity; that religion should be abolished, and that science and ethics of human reason should be substituted; and that all attempts at apologizing for the scientific deficiencies of Christian-ity and revealed religion in general are futile.

His principal works are: Kritik der evangeli-tohen Geschichte des Johannes (Bremen, 1840); Kritik der enangelischen Geschichte der Synop-tiker (2d ed., 3 vols., Leipsic, 1841-'2); Kritik der Evangelien (2 vols., Berlin, 1850-'51); Die Apottelgesehichte (1850); and Kritik der Pauli-nuchen Briefe (1850). Of his minor works are to be mentioned Die Judenfrage (Brunswick, 1843), in which he protested against the emancipation of the Jews, who according to his views were first to emancipate themselves by abandoning their clannishness, religion, and trading in money. His Allgemeine Literatur-zeitung (Charlottenburg, 1843-'4), his works on the history of the French revolution, on German history since the French revolution, and on the causes of the futility of the revolution of 1848-9, though still democratic in spirit, were partly directed against the Utopian tendencies of the revolutionary party. In his later writings (on the "Dictatorship of the Western Powers, 1855, on the "Position of Russia," 1855, etc.) he evinced a more and more decided leaning toward political conservatism, of which he has ultimately become a champion.

II. Edgar, brother of the preceding, born at Charlottenburg in 1821. His pamphlet in defence of his brother Bruno (1842) was confiscated, and his Censurinstruction, written during the preparation of the trial, was also seized, but published in Bern in 1844. On account of his work Der Streit der Kritik mit Kirche und Staat, he was condemned in 1843 to imprisonment in the fortress of Magdeburg for four years. He was a co-worker with his brother in some of his publications, and prepared while in prison Die Geschichte der con-stitutionellen Bewegung im sudlichen Deutsch-land wahrend der Jahre 1831-'34 (3 vols., Charlottenburg, 1845-'6), and Geschichte des Lutherthurns, in the Bibliothek der deutschen Aufklarer (5 vols., Leipsic, 1845-7). After his release in 1848 he published a political review called Die Parteien (Hamburg, 1849), and Ueber die Ehe im Sinne des Lutherthurns (Leipsic, 1849); and in 1857 appeared in Leipsic his Englische Freiheit.