Carl August Ferdinand Schwartz 1817-1870
Schwartz was born in Meseritz in eastern Prussia (now Poland). He desired to become a rabbi but came to faith and was baptised in Berlin in 1837. After studying theology in Halle and in Berlin, he joined the LJS and was assigned to Constantinople in 1842. Just a year later he transferred to the Free Church of Scotland and worked in Berlin until 1848. Following that he served in Amsterdam from 1849-1864 and in London 1864-1870.
Schwartz was a contemporary of Isaac da Costa, with whom he established the Scottish Seminary for Mission at Home and Abroad 1852-1860 and supported the founding of the Netherlands Society for Israel 1861. He married the daughter of Israel Saphir, a Jewish believer from Budapest who had come to faith with his entire family.
In London he became minister of the Palace Garden Church, was one of the 80 Jewish believers who founded the Hebrew Christian Alliance in 1865, and became editor of the Scattered Nation magazine in 1866.
The Jewish community of Amsterdam accused him of proselytism, upset with what they perceived to be agressive missionary activity. In 1858 Samuel Abraham Hirsch attempted to assassinate him. He was stabbed while on his way into the pulpit. Nevertheless, he survived this attack on his life, and when on to become the first president of the Netherlands Reformed Missions Association in 1839.
He criticized the liberalism of the Netherlands Mission Society and advocated the abolition of slavery in Surnam.
Works
Seek the Lost While you are Young! *1865,
Praying to Christ: A Reply to Bishop Colenso (1866) and
What is the Talmud (a.d.)
Sources
Hoekstra, J.F. G. A. F. Schwartz, A.M.J. Rottenberg, S.P.Tabaksblatt: Exemples van Messias-belijdent Joods Denken in de Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk voor, tijdens en na de Shoa” (M. Th. Thesis, Utrecht Univ. 1990).
Greef, W de. Carl A. F. Schwartz, 1817-1870 (1990);
Jongeneel, Jans. Bibliographic Dictionary of Christian Missions. ed. Gerald Anderson. 1999