Edmond Dehault de Pressensé (January 7, 1824 - April 8, 1891), French Protestant divine, was born at Paris.

He studied at Lausanne under Alexandre Vinet, and at Halle and Berlin under FAG Tholuck and JAW Neander, and in 1847 became pastor in the Evangelical Free Church at the chapel of Taitbout in Paris.

He was a powerful preacher and a good political speaker; from 1871 he was a member of the National Assembly, and from 1883 a senator. In 1890 he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences. Pressensé laboured for the revival of biblical studies. He contended that the Evangelical Church ought to be independent of the power of the state.

He founded in 1854 the Revue chrêtienne, and in 1866 the Bulletin Idéologique. His works include: Histoire des trois premiers siècles de l'église chrêtienne (6 vols. 1856-1877; new ed. 1887-1889), L'Eglise ella révolution française (1864; 3rd ed., 1889), Jesus-Christ, son temps, sa vie, son ceuvre (against E Renan, 1866; 7th ed. 1884), Les Origines, le problème de la connaissance; le problème cosmologique (1883; 2nd ed. 1887). See T Roussel, Notice sur la vie et les œuvres de Pressensé (1894).

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