He was born at Karlsruhe and was educated at the universities of Jena, Göttingen, Berlin and Heidelberg, where he became Privatdozent in 1861, professor extraordinary in 1867 and ordinary professor in 1872.
He was a disciple of the Tübingen school and a strong Protestant. Among other works he wrote Der Apostel Paulus (1865), Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte (1868-1873, 4 vols), David Strauss und die Theologie seiner Zeit (1876-1878, 2 vols.), and lives of Richard Rothe (1902, 2 vols.), and Martin Luther (1904). His scholarship was sound and his style vigorous.
Under the pseudonym George Taylor, he wrote several historical romances, especially Antinous (1880), which quickly ran through five editions, and is the story of a soul "which courted death because the objective restraints of faith had been lost". Klytia (1883) was a 16th century story, Jetta (1884) a tale of the great immigrations, and Elfriede "a romance of the Rhine."
This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.