SCHULTZ, HERMANN (1836–), German Protestant theologian, was born at Lüchow in Hanover on the 30th of December 1836. He studied at Göttingen and Erlangen, became professor at Basel in 1864, and eventually (1876) professor ordinarius at Göttingen. Here he has also held the appointments of chief university preacher, councillor to the consistory (from 1881) and abbot of Bursfelde (1890). Professor Schultz’s theological standpoint was that of a moderate liberal. “It is thought by many that he has succeeded in discovering the via media between the positions of Biblical scholars like Delitzsch on the one hand and Stade on the other” (Prof. J. A. Paterson). He is well known to British and American students as the author of an excellent work on Old Testament Theology (2 vols., 1869, 5th ed., 1896; Eng. trans., 2nd ed., 1895). In his work on the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ (Die Lehre von der Gottheit Christi, 1881) he follows the method of Ritschl, and contends that the deity of Christ ought to be understood as the expression of the experience of the Christian community. In his own person and work Christ represents to the community a personal revelation of God. Faith in the divinity of Christ does not rest upon a miracle in nature, but upon a miracle in the moral world.
Schultz’s other works include: Die Stellung des christl. Glaubens zur heiligen Schrift (1876; 2nd ed., 1877), Lehre vom heiligen Abendmahl (1886); Grundriss der evang. Dogmatik (1890; 2nd ed., 1892), Grundriss der evang. Ethik (2nd ed., 1897), and Grundriss der christl. Apologetik (2nd ed., 1902).