Friedrich August Rauch

Who was Friedrich August Rauch?

Friedrich August Rauch was a professor of systematic theology at Marshall College in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. He is often credited as the originator of Mercersburg Theology, although Philip Schaff and John Williamson Nevin were more integral in the development of its views.

Learned in German philosophy and theology, especially Hegelian thought, Rauch's particular contribution was the writing of his book Psychology, or, A view of the human soul This was the first English exposition of Hegelian philosophy for an American audience. He also wrote The Inner Life of the Christian.

In Germany he was appointed to a full professorship at the University of Heidelberg at twenty-four years of age in which "Such an appointment at so early an age has to my knowledge only once been repeated in this century, viz., in the case of Friederich Nietzsche, who is considered the profoundest philosophical thinker of modern Germany".

Rauch died on 2 March 1841. He was buried in Mercersburg, however, his remains were later moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania.