Christian August Crusius, the German Pietist philosopher and theologian, was born at Leuna, Saxony. Educated in Leipzig, he was appointed extraordinary professor of philosophy there in 1744, and professor of theology in 1750. Crusius initiated the third wave of Pietist attacks on Wolffianism by a series of dissertations (1739–1745), and continued it in his four main philosophical works (1744–1749). He later turned to theological studies, lost interest in philosophy, and founded a new theological school, the Biblicoprophetic school, which partially diverged from Pietism. He later became canonicus at the Meissen Theological Seminary.

Crusius's reputation in his own time and his influence on his contemporaries was second among Pietist philosophers only to Christian Thomasius. The collaboration of his close follower, A. F. Reinhard, with Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis and the Berlin Academy in their polemics against Wolffianism established a link between Christian Wolff's Pietist and academic opponents...