Hermann Samuel Reimarus, the German philosopher and theologian, was born in Hamburg and studied theology at Jena. After serving as a lecturer in Wittenberg and as director of a high school in Wismar, he became a teacher of oriental languages at the Johannes-gymnasium in Hamburg. He began writing very late in life, when he was about sixty. One of his most important works, Apologie oder Schutzschrift für die vernünftigen Verehrer Gottes (Apology for or Defense of the Rational Worshiper of God), was first published by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing—posthumously and only in part—as fragments of an allegedly anonymous manuscript found in the Wolfenbüttel Library, where Lessing was librarian ("Wolfenbüttler Fragmente eines Ungenannten," in Beiträge zur Geschichte und Literatur, 1774–1777).

Reimarus was originally a Wolffian, and Wolffianism was a lasting foundation for his thought; but he developed individual...