He was born at
Petershagen, near
Minden, where his father, Georg Christof Friedrich, was preacher. In his tenth year he entered the orphanage at
Halle, from which he duly passed to the university, his studies being interrupted in October 1813 by a period of military service, during which he was enrolled as a volunteer in a regiment of chasseurs. On the conclusion of peace (1815) he returned to Halle, and, having in 1817 taken his degree in
philosophy, he became assistant head (Conrector) of the Minden gymnasium, and in 1818 was appointed director of the gymnasium at
Cleves. Here he published his earliest work (
Historisch-kritischer Versuch über die Entstehung u. die frühesten Schicksale der schriftlichen Evangelien), a treatise which had considerable influence on subsequent investigations as to the origin of the gospels. In 1819 Gieseler was appointed a professor ordinarius in
theology in the newly founded
University of Bonn, where, besides lecturing on church history, he made important contributions to the literature of that subject in
Ernst Friedrich Karl Rosenmüller's
Repertorium,
KF Stäudlin and
HG Tschirner's
Archiv, and in various university "programs." The first part of the first volume of his well-known
Church History appeared in 1824. In 1831 he accepted a call to
Göttingen as successor to
GJ Planck. He lectured on church history, the history of
dogma, and dogmatic theology. In 1837 he was appointed a
Consistorialrath, and shortly afterwards was created a knight of the
Royal Guelphic Order. The fifth volume of the
Kirchengeschichte, embracing the period subsequent to 1814, and
Dogmengeschichte, sometimes regarded as a sixth volume of the
Church History, were published posthumously in 1855 by ER Redepenning (1810–1883), followed finally by the fourth in 1857. Less vivid and picturesque in style than
Karl Hase, lacking
August Neander's deep and sympathetic insight into the more spiritual forces by which church life is pervaded, he excels these and all other contemporaries in the fulness and accuracy of his information. His
Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte, with its copious references to original authorities, is of great value to the student: "Gieseler wished that each age should speak for itself, since only by this means can the peculiarity of its ideas be fully appreciated." (
Otto Pfleiderer,
Development of Theology, p. 284). ==Works==