professor of theology at Heidelberg, where he came
under the influence of J. F. Fries (1773-1843); and in 1810 was
transferred to a similar chair in the newly founded university of
Berlin, where he enjoyed the friendship of Schleiermacher. He was,
however, dismissed from Berlin in 1819 on account of his having written
a letter of consolation to the mother of Karl Ludwig Sand, the murderer
of Kotzebue. A petition in his favour presented by the senate of the
university was unsuccessful, and a decree was issued not only depriving
him of the chair, but banishing him from the Prussian kingdom. He
retired for a time to Weimar, where he occupied his leisure in the
preparation of his edition of Luther, and in writing the romance
_Theodor oder die Weihe des Zweiflers_ (Berlin, 1822), in which he
describes the education of an evangelical pastor. During this period he
made his first essay in preaching, and proved himself to be possessed of
very popular gifts. But in 1822 he accepted the chair of theology in the
university of Basel, which had been reorganized four years before.
Though his appointment had been strongly opposed by the orthodox party,
De Wette soon won for himself great influence both in the university and
among the people generally. He was admitted a citizen, and became rector
of the university, which owed to him much of its recovered strength,
particularly in the theological faculty. He died on the 16th of June
1849.

De Wette has been described by Julius Wellhausen as "the epoch-making
opener of the historical criticism of the Pentateuch." He prepared the
way for the Supplement-theory. But he also made valuable contributions
to other branches of theology. He had, moreover, considerable poetic
faculty, and wrote a drama in three acts, entitled _Die Entsagung_
(Berlin, 1823). He had an intelligent interest in art, and studied
ecclesiastical music and architecture. As a Biblical critic he is
sometimes classed with the destructive school, but, as Otto Pfleiderer
says (_Development of Theology_, p. 102), he "occupied as free a
position as the Rationalists with regard to the literal authority of the
creeds of the church, but that he sought to give their due value to the
religious feelings, which the Rationalists had not done, and, with a
more unfettered mind towards history, to maintain the connexion of the
present life of the church with the past." His works are marked by
exegetical skill, unusual power of condensation