Friedrich Loofs


Friedrich Loofs was a German theologian and church historian best remembered for his studies involving the history of dogma.

Biography

He studied theology at the universities of Leipzig, Tübingen, and Göttingen, and received his doctorate from Leipzig in 1881. As a student, Adolf von Harnack and Albrecht Ritschl were important influences to his career. From 1888 to 1926 he was a professor of church history at the University of Halle, where in 1907/08 he served as rector. Concurrent with his work at the university, from 1890 to 1925, he held title of Consistorialrat in the city of Magdeburg.
In 1886, he was co-founder of the journal Die Christliche Welt.
Loofs was an opponent of the Christ myth theory. In his book What is the Truth about Jesus Christ? he criticized the theories of mythicists such as Arthur Drews and William Benjamin Smith.
He attacked the views of Ernst Haeckel which he considered anti-Christian.

Selected works