Edmond de Pressensé

Edmond Dehault de Pressensé (7 January 1824 – 8 April 1891) was a French Protestant religious leader.

Biography

He was born at Paris, and studied at Lausanne under Alexandre Vinet. He went on to the University of Halle as a pupil of Friedrich August Tholuck and to Humboldt University in Berlin, where he studied under August Neander. In 1847 he became a pastor in the Evangelical Church at the chapel of Taitbout in Paris.

He was a powerful preacher and political orator; from 1871 he was a member of the National Assembly, and from 1883 a life senator. In 1890 he was elected a member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques. Pressensé laboured for the revival of biblical studies. He contended that the Evangelical Church ought to be independent of the power of the state.

His son Francis de Pressensé was a French politician and man of letters.

Published works

In 1854 he founded the Revue chrétienne, and in 1866 the Bulletin idéologique. His works include:

• Histoire des trois premiers siècles de l'Église chrétienne (6 volumes. 1856-1877; new edition 1887-1889).
• L'Église et la Révolution française (1864).
• Jésus-Christ, son temps, sa vie, son œuvre (against Ernest Renan, 1866).
• Les Origines, le problème de la connaissance; le problème cosmologique (1883).

Several of his works were translated into English by Annie Harwood Holmden:

• Jesus Christ : his times, life, and work (1866).
• The early years of Christianity : a comprehensive history of the first three centuries of the Christian church (4 volumes, 1879).
• A Study of origins : or, the problems of knowledge, of being, and of duty (1883).
• The ancient world and Christianity (1888).

References

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Pressensé, Edmond Dehault de". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• HathiTrust Digital Library (published works)