SCHAFF, PHILIP (1819–1893), American theologian and church historian, was born in Chur, Switzerland, on the 1st of January 1819. He was educated at the gymnasium of Stuttgart, and at the universities of Tübingen, Halle and Berlin, where he was successively influenced by Baur and Schmid, by Tholuck and Julius Müller, by Strauss and, above all, Neander. In 1842 he was Privatdozent in the university of Berlin, and in 1843 he was called to become professor of church history and Biblical literature in the German Reformed Theological Seminary of Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, then the only seminary of that church in America. On his journey he stayed six months in England and met Pusey and other Tractarians. His inaugural address on The Principle of Protestantism, delivered in German at Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1844, and published in German with an English version by J. W. Nevin (q.v.), by its Neander-like view that Romanism and Protestantism were only stages in the divinely appointed development of the Christian Church, aroused fierce opposition in the Reformed Church and Schaff was characterized as “ Puseyistic ” and “ semi-papistical ”; in 1845 he was tried for heresy and found not guilty by the Synod. Opposition to him soon died out within his own denomination: it was more particularly directed against his polemic champion, Nevin, and it had its source more in the Dutch (than in the German) Reformed Church, and even there was confined more to the New Brunswick school (i.e. the churchmen of the Dutch Reformed Theological Seminary in New Brunswick, New Jersey) and its English and Scottish members,—as late as 1856 J. J. Janeway of New Brunswick published his Antidote to the Poison of Popery in the Writings and Conduct of Professors Nevin and Schaff. Schaff's broad views strongly influenced the German Reformed Church, through his teaching at Mercersburg, through his championship of English in German Reformed churches and schools in America, through his hymnal (1859), through his labours as chairman of the committee which prepared a new liturgy, and by his edition (1863) of the Heidelberg Catechism. His History of the Apostolic Church (in German, 1851; in English, 1853) and his History of the Christian Church (7 vols., 1858–1890), opened a new period in American study of ecclesiastical history. After 1864 his home was in New York City, where he was until 1869 secretary of the New York Sabbath Committee (which fought the “ continental Sunday ”), and was corresponding secretary of the American Evangelical Alliance, of which he was in 1866 a founder. In 1865 he founded the first German Sunday School in Stuttgart. In 1862–1867 he lectured on church history at Andover, and after 1869 taught at the Union Theological Seminary—as instructor in church history in 1869-1870, and professor of theological cyclopaedia and Christian symbolism in 1870–1873, of Hebrew and cognate languages in 1873–1874, of sacred literature in 1874–1887, and of church history in 1887–1893. The English Bible Revision Committee in 1870 requested him to form a co-operating American Committee, of which he became president in 1871. He died in New York City on the 20th of October 1893. Working with the Evangelical Alliance and the Chicago (1893) World's Parliament of Religions, and in Germany, through the monthly Kirchenfreund, he strove earnestly to promote Christian unity and union; and it was his hope that the pope would abandon the doctrine of infallibility and undertake the reunion of Christianity. He recognized that he was a “ mediator between German and Anglo-American theology and Christianity ”; his theology was broad rather than definite, though he sharply dissented from Nevin's mystical doctrine of the union in the eucharist of the believer with Christ's glorified body as well as His glorified soul. He edited (1864–1880) the American translation and revision of Lange's Bibelwerk, the great Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge (1884, 3rd ed. 1891); the first seven volumes of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers in English (1886–1894); and the International Illustrated Commentary on the New Testament (4 vols., 1879–1883) and the International Revision Commentary (5 vols. 1881–1884), as far as the Epistle to Romans. His Bibliotheca symbolica ecclesiae universalis: the Creeds of Christendom (3 vols. 1877, 6th ed. 1893) was a pioneer work in English in the field of symbolics. His History of the Christian Church, already mentioned, resembled Neander's work, though less biographical, and was pictorial rather than philosophical. He wrote, besides, biographies, catechisms and hymnals for children, manuals of religious verse, lectures and essays on Dante, &c.
His son, David Schley Schaff (1852–1941), was professor of church history in Lane Theological Seminary in 1897–1903, and after 1903 in Western Theological Seminary at Allegheny, Pa. He wrote a Commentary on the Book of Acts (1882) and a Life of Philip Schaff (New York, 1897).
SCHAFFHAUSEN (Fr. Schaffhouse) , the most northerly of the Swiss cantons, and the only one wholly (excepting the small hamlet of Burg, a suburb of Stein) north of the Rhine. It is divided into three detached portions by the grand-duchy of
Baden, which surrounds it on all sides save that of the Rhine, which separates it from the cantons of Thurgau and of Zurich: by far the largest part is the region near the chief town, Schaffhausen, while to the south is the small isolated district of Rüdlingen and Buchberg (purchased in 1520), and to the east the more extensive tract around the old town of Stein on the Rhine (ceded by Zurich in 1798). Within the territory of Schaffhausen are two " enclaves," belonging politically to Baden—the village of Büsingen (just east of the chief town) and the farm of Verenahof, near Büttenhardt. The total area of the canton is 113.5 sq. m., of which 108.4 sq. m. are classed as " productive " (forests covering 46 sq. m., and vineyards
4 sq. m.). The main portion of the canton consists of the gently inclined plateau of the Randen (its highest point, c. 3000 ft., is at its north edge) that slopes towards the Rhine, and is intersected by several short glens, separated by rounded ridges. The most important of these glens is that of the Klettgau, to the west of the chief town. There are only intermittent torrents in the canton, apart from the broad stream of the Rhine, which, about 112 m. below the town, forms the celebrated Falls of the Rhine (first mentioned about 1122), which are rather rapids (only 60 ft. in height) than a cascade proper, though the mass of water is very great.
The direct railway line from Constance to Basel, along the right and (generally) non-Swiss bank of the Rhine, passes through the canton for some 16 m., while there is a branch line (entirely within the canton) from Schaffhausen to Schleitheim (1012 m.), and two lines join the chief town with the Swiss territory to the south, Zürich being thus 29 m. or 3512 m. distant. In 1900 the population was 41,454, of whom 40,290 were German-speaking, while 34,046 were Protestants, 7403 Romanists and 22 Jews. The inhabitants are devoted chiefly to agriculture (particularly fodder stuffs and fruits) and to wine-growing (Hallauer is the best-known red wine). There are tile factories in the Reiath region (N.E. of the capital). The canton is divided into six administrative districts, which comprise thirty-six communes. The cantonal constitution dates in its main features from 1876. The legislature or Grossrat is composed of members elected for four years in the proportion of one to every 500 (or fraction over 250) of the population, but only communes with more than 250 inhabitants form separate electoral circles, the smaller being united for electoral purposes with their greater neighbours. The executive or Regierungsrat of five members is also elected for four years by a popular vote, as are the two members of the Federal Ständerat and of the Federal Nationalrat. One thousand citizens have the right of " initiative " as to legislative projects and important financial matters as well as to the revision of the cantonal constitution. Since 1895 the " obligatory referendum " for all legislative projects has prevailed, as well as a curious institution (formerly existing in several cantons) by which the legislature can consult the people on certain questions involving principles and not merely on fully drafted legislative projects. The taxes are very small, while the property of the canton is the most considerable in Switzerland, so that from a financial point of view Schaffhausen is the most favoured in the country, and till recently it had no public debt at all. The numerous forests are well managed and bring in much money.
The canton arose from acquisitions made at various dates from 1461 to 1798 by the town, which at the time of the Reformation obtained possession of the outlying estates of the ecclesiastical foundations then suppressed. The most interesting spot in the canton is the little town of Stein, with its Benedictine monastery (1005–1526), now a sort of medieval museum, and the castle of Hohenklingen towering above it. (W. A. B. C.)
