Martensen, Hans Larsen (1808–1884)

Danish theologian. He became professor of theology at Copenhagen and court preacher. Among his works which often diverged from strict Lutheran orthodoxy and inclined to mysticism were treatises on Christian dogmatics and ethics, moral philosophy and, especially, a life of Jacob Boehme. Martensen was appointed bishop of Zealand in 1884.

He was born in Flensburg. An ‘official’ panegyric of his on Bishop Mynster on his death in 1854 brought a fierce invective of Kierkegaard with the text ‘a witness of the truth’.