Paul de Lagarde

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Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox person Paul Anton de Lagarde (born Paul Bötticher, 2 November 1827 – 22 December 1891) was a German biblical scholar and orientalist. He is regarded as one of the greatest orientalists of the 19th century. Lagarde authored dozens of books, many on politics. His anti-Semitism, anti-Slavism, and aversion to traditional Christianity were influential precursors of Nazism.

Life and career

Paul Bötticher was born in Berlin on November 2, 1827. His father, Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Bötticher, was a philologist who taught languages at the Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium. His mother, Luise, was only eighteen years old. Luise died several days after Paul was born. Wilhelm was bereft. He blamed his newborn son for the loss and treated him miserably. Paul's woeful upbringing led him to feel nothing upon his father's death.<ref name=Stern/>Template:Rp Two maternal aunts nurtured Paul emotionally and financially. Ernestine de Lagarde was Luise's aunt, and she eventually adopted Paul.<ref name=LagardeA/>Template:Rp

Bötticher attended Humboldt University of Berlin from 1844–6 where he studied Oriental languages, theology, and philosophy under professors like Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg, who was a friend of his father. His primary mentor was Friedrich Rückert.<ref name=Andover>"In Memoriam: Abraham Kuenen — Paul Anton de Lagarde", Andover Review, Vol. XVII, No. XCVIII. February, 1892. 201–7.</ref> He attended the University of Halle-Wittenberg from 1846–7.<ref name=EB>Template:Cite EB1911</ref>

In 1852, Bötticher received a 1,000 thaler grant from King Frederick William IV to study abroad. He used it to travel to London to work at the British Museum.<ref name=LagardeA/>Template:Rp He lodged at the Prussian Embassy in London and worked part time as Ambassador von Bunsen's secretary.<ref name=Jordan>Jordan, Alexander. "Thomas Carlyle and Paul de Lagarde of Göttingen: Their Correspondence", Carlyle Studies Annual, no. 34, 2021. 99–126.</ref>Template:Rp On his way home in January 1853, Bötticher stayed in Paris to work in the Bibliothèque nationale. He relied on Ernest Renan to check out manuscripts for him.<ref name=LagardeA/>Template:Rp The Syriac texts he studied while abroad led to the publication of Didascalia apostolorum syriace in 1854.<ref name=EB/>

That year, Bötticher married Anna Berger.<ref name=LagardeA/>Template:Rp He also decided to change his name to Paul de Lagarde in honor of his mother's family and to move past his painful childhood.<ref name=Rahlfs/>Template:Rp He had already published several volumes under his birth name.<ref>Hauck, Albert.Realencyklopädie für Protestantische Theologie und Kirche, Elfter Band. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, 1902. 212–218.</ref>

In 1855, Paul de Lagarde taught languages at Köllnisches Gymnasium in Berlin where his duties included teaching gymnastics.<ref>Bonwetsch, G. Nathanael. "Aus vierzig Jahren deutscher Kirchengeschichte. Briefe an E. W. Hengstenberg," Beitrage zur Förderung christlicher Theologie, 2d series, XXIV:2. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1919. 5-6.</ref> He continued to publish scholarly work, much of it at his own expense. In 1858, he transferred to the Friedrichswerdersches Gymnasium. In 1866, he was given three years leave for research. In 1869, he took over Heinrich Ewald's professorship of oriental languages at the University of Göttingen.<ref name=Andover/>

The decade it took to become a professor deepened the bitterness Lagarde already felt over his childhood.<ref name=Andover/> He was dogmatic and distrustful of others.<ref name=ea>Template:Cite Americana</ref> Lagarde shunned professional affiliations and frequently attacked colleagues and peers. In a letter to Adolf Hilgenfeld, Lagarde described himself as an "anchorite", simultaneously lamenting and imposing his self-isolation.<ref>Pölcher, Helmut M. "ΣΥΜΦΙΛΟΛΓΕΙΝ: Briefe von Paul de Lagarde an Adolf Hilgenfeld aus den Jahren 1862-1887," in Lebendiger Geist: Hans-Joachim Schoeps zum 50. Geburtstag von Schülern dargebracht. Leiden: Brill, 1959. 31.</ref>

Lagarde was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1891 and kept the diagnosis secret. He had an operation to treat it on 19 December. It was unsuccessful, and he died three days later.<ref name=LagardeA/>Template:Rp His own eulogist, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, described Lagarde as a lonely man who sowed the wind and reaped the storm.<ref>Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Ulrich von. "Am Sarge von Paul Lagarde" in Reden und Vorträge. Weidmann, 1901. 92.</ref>

Scholarship

Paul de Lagarde's father Wilhelm Bötticher was a prolific scholar. Lagarde loathed the assembly-line nature of his father's writing. Ironically, he would be similarly overproductive, writing many works that were underbaked.<ref name=Rahlfs>Rahlfs, Alfred. Paul de Lagardes wissenschaftliches Lebenswerk im Rahmen einer Geschichte seines Lebens dargestellt. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1928.</ref>Template:Rp He wrote dozens of books on a broad range of topics, moving fluidly between multiple languages. His main focus was elucidation of the Bible.<ref name=nie>Template:Cite NIE</ref> A bibliography of his work was prepared in 1892, and it ran to eighteen pages.<ref>Gottheil, Richard. "Bibliography of the works of Paul Lagarde", in Proceedings of the American Oriental Society, 21–23 April 1892. Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 15. New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1893. CCXI-CCXXIX.</ref>

In 1865, he set a massive goal of creating a critical edition of the Septuagint. The project obsessed him for most of his career.<ref>Neuschäfer, Bernhard. "Alteri saeculo – Paul Anton de Lagardes ‚Lebensarbeit‘ an der Septuaginta" in Die Göttinger Septuaginta : Ein Editorisches Jahrhundertprojekt. Edited by Reinhard G. Kratz and Bernhard Neuschäfer. De Gruyter, Inc., 2013. 235–64.</ref> Just before his death, Lagarde showed his pupil Alfred Rahlfs his plans for the project so that his work could continue.<ref>Hedley, P. L. "The Göttingen Investigation and Edition of the Septuagint", Harvard Theological Review, vol. 26, no. 1, 1933. 57.</ref> Lagarde relied on the Codex Reuchlinianus to produce Prophetae chaldaice (1872), a text of Targum Jonathan. He did this work in fierce opposition of the relatively new Wissenschaft des Judentums approach.<ref>Houtman, Alberdina, and Harry Sysling. Alternative Targum Traditions: The Use of Variant Readings for the Study in Origin and History of Targum Jonathan. Brill, 2009. 43.</ref>

Lagarde's studies of Arabic language manuscripts are still widely cited.<ref>Kachouh, Hikmat. "The Arabic Versions of the Gospels: A Case Study of John 1.1 and 1.8", in The Bible in Arab Christianity. Netherlands, Brill, 2007. 9.</ref> He edited an Arabic translation of the Gospels (Die vier Evangelien, 1864), a Syriac translation of the Old Testament Apocrypha (Libri V. T. Apocryphi Syriace, 1861), and a Coptic translation of the Pentateuch (Der Pentateuch Koptisch, 1867).<ref name=EB/>

Lagarde published an edition of Eusebius' Onomasticon in 1870.<ref>The Onomasticon of Eusebius of Caesarea and the Liber Locorum of Jerome. Translated by G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville. Carta Jerusalem, 2003. 7.</ref>

He was also a student of Persian, publishing Isaias Persice (1883) and Persische Studien (1884). In 1880, de Lagarde attempted to reconstruct a Syriac version of Epiphanius' treatise On Weights and Measures.<ref>"Recent German Works", Bibliotheca Sacra. Darper, 1881. 389.</ref> He published manuscripts of Coptic apocrypha as Aegyptiaca in 1883.<ref>Coptic Apocryphal Gospels. In Texts and Studies: Contributions to Biblical and Patristic Literature, Vol. IV No. 2. Translated by Forbes Robinson. Cambridge University Press, 1896. xx.</ref>

Lagarde published several volumes of miscellany such as Gesammelte Abhandlungen (1866), Symmicta (I. 1877, II. 1880), Semitica (I. 1878, II. 1879), Orientalia (1879–1880) and Mittheilungen (1884).<ref name=Lougee>Lougee, Robert W. Paul de Lagarde, 1827-1891 : A Study of Radical Conservatism in Germany. Harvard University Press, 2013.</ref>Template:Rp

Political writing

Lagarde was a member of the Prussian Conservative Party until 1849 when it fabricated evidence of treason against Benedikt Waldeck. He became deeply disenchanted and politically unaligned.<ref name=Stern/>Template:Rp<ref name=LagardeA/>Template:Rp Lagarde supported the unification of Germany in 1871, but the spirit of the new country dissatisfied him. He began to write about politics, and in 1874, Lagarde published Politische Aufsätze (Political Essays). He sent a copy to Thomas Carlyle who responded with an admiring letter.<ref name=Jordan/>Template:Rp

The opening essay was first delivered as a lecture in November 1853.<ref name=Lagarde74>Lagarde, Paul de. Politische Aufsätze. Dieterich’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1874.</ref>Template:Rp It proposes a German colonization of Europe to create a Mitteleuropa. Though he also writes with the casual anti-semitism that was widespread at the time, Lagarde expresses admiration for the discipline of Jewish life. He specifically points to Judaism as an example of how a national religion benefits a population.<ref name=Lagarde74/>Template:Rp The book's second essay plays out this theme of a national religion. Lagarde calls for a radical morality where actions are solely "duty or sin".<ref name=Lagarde/>Template:Rp

Lagarde's views of religion were incoherent. Lagarde prized the rituals of religion and ongoing revelation.<ref>Viaene, Vincent. "Paul de Lagarde: A Nineteenth-Century ‘Radical’ Conservative — and Precursor of National Socialism?", European History Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 4, 1996. 527–57.</ref> He admired the early iteration of Christianity but despised what Catholicism had become. He viewed the Bible as a bricolage of dubious texts. He ridiculed Protestantism as an elaborate fantasy.<ref name=Jordan/>Template:Rp

Lagarde had a similarly vague sense of national identity. In 1875, he wrote, "Germany is the totality of all German-feeling, German-thinking, German-willing Germans: In this sense, every one of us is a traitor if he does not consider himself personally accountable in every moment of his life for the existence, fortune and future of the fatherland, and each is a hero and liberator if he does."<ref name=Lagarde>Lagarde, Paul de. Deutsche Schriften. Göttingen: Dieterich’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1892.</ref>Template:Rp

As Lagarde aged, the bitterness he felt about so much of life also hardened his anti-semitism. His rhetoric advanced well beyond the prevailing prejudice into a conspiratorial fever.<ref name=Jordan/>Template:Rp He corresponded with Adolf Stoecker, the founder of the anti-Semitic Berlin Movement. He also showed interest in folkish anti-Semitic societies such as Bernhard Förster and Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg's Deutscher Volksverein and Theodor Fritsch's Deutschsoziale Partei.<ref name=Sieg>Sieg, Ulrich. Germany’s Prophet: Paul de Lagarde & the Origins of Modern Antisemitism. Translated by Linda Marianiello. Brandeis University Press, 2013.</ref>Template:Rp

Lagarde considered Jews to be the greatest barrier to German greatness, and he suggested they be moved to Madagascar.<ref name=Brechtken>Brechtken, Magnus. Madagaskar für die Juden: Antisemitische Idee und politische Praxis 1885 - 1945. Studien zur Zeitgeschichte, Band 53. München: Oldenbourg Wissenschaft, 1998. 16f.</ref> In 1887, he wrote, "One would have to have a heart of steel to not feel sympathy for the poor Germans and, by the same token, to not hate the Jews, to not hate and despise those who – out of humanity! – advocate for the Jews or are too cowardly to crush these vermin. Trichinella and bacilli would not be negotiated with, trichinella and bacilli would also not be nurtured, they would be destroyed as quickly and as thoroughly as possible."<ref>Lagarde, Paul de. Juden und Indogermanen: Eine Studie nach dem Leben. Göttingen: Dieterichsche Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1887. 339.</ref> He also despised Slavs and wrote, "the sooner they perish the better it will be for us and them".<ref>Soucy, Robert. "Fascism: Intellectual origins", Encyclopaedia Britannica. 21 October 2024.</ref>

In 1878, Lagarde first collected his political essays in Deutsche Schriften (German Writings). He published a second volume in 1881 and a combined edition in 1886.<ref name=Stern/>Template:Rp Fritz Stern zeroed in on the aimless nature of these writings:

"He wrote as a prophet; he neither reasoned nor exposited, but poured out his excoriations and laments, his intuitive truths and promises. There was nothing limpid or systematic in his work; within each essay he skipped from subject to subject, alternating abstract generalities and concrete proposals. The pervasive mood of the book was despair and the dominant tone a kind of whiny heroism."<ref name=Stern>Stern, Fritz The Politics of Cultural Despair: a Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology. University of California Press, 1961.</ref>Template:Rp

Legacy

Lagarde was the most renowned Septuagint scholar of the nineteenth century.<ref name=nie/> A 1920 handbook of Septuagint studies concluded that Lagarde's work set the modern standard for the field.<ref name=Ottley>Ottley, Richard Rusden. A Handbook to the Septuagint. Methuen, 1920. 71–2.</ref> Shortly after his death, The New York Times described Lagarde as "the most remarkable writer on Semitic studies that the world has ever known". Lagarde bequeathed his library to the Royal Society of Sciences in Göttingen. When John Dyneley Prince was alerted that it was for sale and would immediately bestow the owner with the best Oriental library in America, he arranged for New York University to purchase it for $7,000 in 1893.<ref name=NYT>"RARE ORIENTAL VOLUMES: THE PAUL DE LAGARDE LIBRARY TO BE BROUGHT HERE", The New York Times. 26 January 1893. 9.</ref>

In 1894, Lagarde's wife Anna published many of his letters in a memoir of her husband.<ref name=LagardeA>Lagarde, Anna de. Paul de Lagarde: Erinnerungen aus seinem Leben für die freunde Zusammengestellt. Germany, W. F. Kaestner, 1894.</ref>Template:Rp

Deutsche Schriften was widely read by figures like Thomas Mann and Theodor Heuss.<ref>"Ulrich Sieg: Deutschlands Prophet. Paul de Lagarde und die Ursprünge des modernen Antisemitismus", Perlentaucher.de.</ref> Tomáš Masaryk regarded Lagarde as one of the leading philosophical and theological spokesmen of the German Drang nach Osten project that threatened the Slavic countries. Masaryk grouped Lagarde with Heinrich von Treitschke as the movement's historian, Wilhelm II as its politician, and Friedrich Ratzel as its geographer.<ref>Masaryk, Tomáš Garrigue, and Saudek, Emil.Das neue Europa: der slavische Standpunkt. Germany, C. A. Schwetschke & Sohn, 1922. 4, 12.</ref>

Lagarde's writings foreshadowed much of the Nazi Party platform when it emerged in 1920.<ref>Paul de Lagarde on Liberalism, Education, and the Jews: German Writings (1886), German History in Documents and Images</ref> His imperialism prefigured Ratzel's concept of Lebensraum, which was taken up by the Nazis.<ref name=Sieg/>Template:Rp Nazi theorist Alfred Rosenberg was heavily influenced by Lagarde's writings. Rosenberg's notion of positive Christianity directly descended from Lagarde.<ref name=Snyder>Snyder, Louis. "Lagard, Paul Anton de (1827–1891)", Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. Robert Hale, 1976. 203.</ref> The Nazi Madagascar Plan for the forcible relocation of Jews originates from what is essentially a wisecrack in Lagarde's 1885 book Die nächsten Pflichten deutscher Politik.<ref name=Brechtken/>

The University of Göttingen maintains Lagarde's former residence as a facility for its Septuagint collections.<ref>"Septuaginta-Unternehmen Facilities", University of Göttingen. Accessed July 1, 2025.</ref> The University's Student Union has requested the house be renamed.<ref>"Offener Brief: Keine Huldigung für Antisemiten an der Universität Göttingen", asta.uni-goettingen.de. July 25, 2017. Archived March 2, 2021.</ref><ref>Der Nachlass Paul de Lagarde: Orientalistische Netzwerke und antisemitische Verflechtungen. Ed. Heike Behlmer, Thomas L. Gertzen, and Orell Witthuhn. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2020. 5.</ref>

Selected works

As Paul Boetticher
As Paul Lagarde
2nd edition, 1887.

As editor:

References

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Further reading

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