Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim

Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim (1729–81), a leading figure of the Enlightenment. He followed a literary career. His interest in theological problems was stimulated by the fragments of H. S. Reimarus which he edited (1774–8). He saw the essence of religion in a purely humanitarian morality independent of all historical revelation; he embodied his views in the principal figure of his play Nathan der Weise (1779), an ideal Jew of serene tolerance, benevolence and generosity, conceived on the lines of enlightened rationalism. His writings laid the foundations of the Protestant Liberalism that was to hold sway in Germany throughout the 19th cent. He rejected Christianity as a historical religion on the ground that ‘the accidental truths of history can never become the proof of necessary truths of reason’. He also made some original studies on Gospel origins.