Arthur Drews

Christian Heinrich Arthur Drews (Uetersen, Holstein, 1865 – 1935) was a German writer, historian and philosopher, and one of the leading representatives of monist thought in his country. Rooted in German idealism, he wrote widely on the history of philosophy, religion and mythology. He taught philosophy and German language at the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe.

A disciple of Eduard von Hartmann, Drews took up the view that reality is an unconscious World Spirit, expressed in history through religions and through the consciousness of philosophers. His best-known work, The Christ Myth (1909), argued that Jesus was not a historical figure, building on and popularizing earlier ideas of Bruno Bauer. The controversy it stirred brought him international attention. Drews held that Judaism and Christianity rested on ancient beliefs shaped by religious dualism, and he called for a renewed faith grounded in monism and German idealism rather than in the cult of a personality.

He was also a contentious figure. He criticized Nietzsche's individualism, defended Wagner firmly, and in his last years rejected the Nazi appropriation of Nietzsche. Academic historians often dismissed him as an amateur, yet his arguments about Wagner and about the historicity of Jesus remained part of later debate.