Rottenburg failed, among other reasons because of the distrust with which he was regarded in Rome owing to his above-named work on confession. Somewhat as a recompense the first position at the cathedral was reserved for him, which however, he never filled. After convalescing from a severe illness, be was relieved from his office as teacher of dogmatic theology (1838). Still comparatively robust, though well advanced in years, Drey was pensioned in 1846, almost against his will; he continued, however, to write for Wetzer and Welte's Kirchenlexikon and for the "Theologische Quartalschrift" of Tübingen. Works In 1832 appeared his "Neue Untersuchungen über die Konstitutionen und Kanones der Apostel", later updated by von Funk. Just then his principal work, in three volumes, appeared: "Die Apologetik als wissenschaftliche Nachweisung der Göttlichkeit des Christentums in seiner Erscheinung" (1838–1847). Like Möhler, Hefele, and von Funk, he was a critical historian. But Drey also gave to the systematic theology of this school its peculiar stamp, equi-distinct from Traditionalism and Rationalism, recognizing on the one hand the objective facts in the history of Revelation and the tradition from generation to generation, maintaining on the other the rights of our natural reason and of philosophical speculation, with all due loyalty to dogma. Johannes von Kuhn and Schanz faithfully followed in the path marked out by Drey. References Theologische Quartalschrift, XXXV (1853), 340 sqq, LXXX (1898), 18 sq. External links Catholic Encyclopedia article 1777 births 1853 deaths 19th-century German Catholic theologians 19th-century German male writers 19th-century German writers German male non-fiction writers