Albert Réville

Who was Albert Réville?

Albert Réville was a distinguished French Protestant theologian, known for his 'extremist' liberal views. He is also known for being one of the first "intellectuals" to join the Dreyfusard cause when the Dreyfus Affair erupted in the 1890s.

Réville was born in Dieppe, Seine-Maritime. From 1851 to 1872 he was pastor of the Walloon church in Rotterdam. In 1880 he became professor of the History of Religions in the Collège de France, during the course of which he helped found the Revue de l'histoire des religions with Maurice Vernes. In 1886, he was appointed as the inaugural President of the new "Fifth Section" for Religious Sciences at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris.

He was a prolific writer on the comparative history of world religions. In addition to the history of Christianity, he published on the native religions of Central America, Chinese religion and the history of the idea of the Devil.

He was a notable advocate of David Strauss' vision hypothesis, that the accounts of the resurrection of Jesus were historically due to a vision caused by nervous tension by Mary Magdalene and subsequent mass hysteria among the disciples.