HERDER, hflr'der, JOHANN GOTTFRIED: Superintendent at Weimar, contemporary of Goethe, and influential both in German

Life. church affairs and German literature; b. at Mohrungen (62 m. ss.w. of Königsberg), East Prussia, Aug. 26, 1744; d. at Weimar Dec. 18, 1803. He studied theology, philosophy, and ancient science at Königsberg, 1762-64, and had Kant as his teacher and fatherly friend. While still a young clergyman and teacher at the Riga cathedral school, he established his literary reputa tion by the Fragments über die neueste deutsche Letteratur (Riga, 1767) and the Kritischen Bilder (1769). From 1771 to 1776 he had the position of court preacher and councilor of the consistory at Bilckeburg; then he was called to Weimar as super intendent to undertake the management of ecclesi astical and school affairs. Here he spent the rest of his life, and here a bronze statue tells of his glory.

Herder, the theologian among the classics and the classic author among the German theologians, is equally great in poetry, criticism, in

His Great- the history of civilization, literature ness and and art, in philosophy and pedagogics, Ability. in religion, religious inquiry, and theology. Everywhere he sought new paths, found new openings, and inspired minds. The best thinkers of the nation, Leasing, Wieland, Goethe, Lavater, Jacobi, valued him highly. The extent of his knowledge is remarkably wide. He had an open eye for all that is true, good, and beautiful, wh:ch always and everywhere has proved the godly instinct of humanity. He united critical sharpness with intuitive geniality, deep learning with inexhaustible productivity. With most ardent diligence he collected the products of human civilization and godly revelation from the Bible, in the mythologies, popular traditions and songs, in the founders of religions and the lawgivers, poets, and thinkers of all nations, and all that he found here and in the philosophers from Zoroaster to Spinoza, Leibnitz, Rousseau, and Shaftesbury, he worked into his philosophy of mankind.

The dry veins of theology, too, were filled with fresh blood by Herder. His sense of truth and love of freedom, his refined taste and wide-

His Service minded toleration, have had a very to Theology favorable influence upon religious life

and and ideas. Liturgics, homiletics, hymnReligion. ology owe him as much as the Christian catechism, the study of theology, and the practical training of the clergy. He revived church history, he freed dogmatics from the bonds of scholasticism; he was a great promoter of the esthetic and practical religious estimation of the Bible as well as of its historical and critical value; he discovered the law of a progressing reformation and

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wonderfully prepared the renovation of the Christian faith, the deliverance of the spirit of religion from the law of a dead form. Herder fought against the insipid and weak neology as well as against rigid orthodoxy. The Bible was all and everything to him. In the different epochs of his development he always was its defender, the cultivator of truly Protestant principles, an honest judge of the disputing parties, a prophet of the regeneration of Christianity, a speaker for Christian humanity. He does not dispute, like a scholastic theologian, for words, forms, theological formulas, but for the eternal truth of the gospel of love. He is not afraid to acknowledge the mythical, traditional, poetical elements in Bible history, but he always tries to set forth the highest ideas of God in their glory. He is neither a dry materialist nor a bombastic metaphysician. He wants to be a Bible-theologian in the Spirit of Luther, and has become the "John the Baptist of modern theology."

Of his theological works the following may be mentioned here: Die dlteste Urkunde des MenSchen-

geschlechts (2 vols., Riga, 1774-76), inTheological quiries into the first two chapters of Works. Genesis; two contributions to New

Testament theology entitled ErlButer ungen sue einer neugeo fneten morgenlandischen Quelle (the Zend-Avesta; 1775) and Brie fe von zwei Bradern Jesu in unserem Kanon (the Epistles of James and Jude; 1775); also Provinzialbldtter an Prediger (1774), an apology against the theology of the Aufkldrung. These works Herder published while at Bfckeburg. At Weimar he published Lieder der Liebe (the Song of Solomon, " the purest and sweetest love-poetry of old times "; 1778); Maran Atha oder das Buch von der Zukunft des Hewn (the Apocalypse; 1779); Briefe aberdas Sttc dium der Theologie (178(1-81), a kind of theolog ical encyclopedia, including a whole series of essays and inquiries of exegetic and dogmatic contents about the " Redeemer according to the First Three Gospels "; the" Son of God according to St. John the Evangelist, the Facts of Whitsuntide, and of the Resurrection"; about the "Spiritof Christianity"; "Religion in Comparison with Dogmatic Opinions and Customs " ; " Christianity and anti-Christian ity"; Vom Geist der ebrdischen Poesie (2 vols., 1782 1783; Eng. transl., Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, 2 vols., Burlington, 1833), a book that broke a path for the study of Hebrew Poetry (see Hebrew Language and Literature, III.). Much that is of value has also been preserved in Herder's occa sional addresses and sermons. His deepest views are revealed in his philosophical works concerning God, "Perception and Feeling," and in the Ideen zur Geschichte der Philasophie der Menschheit (4 vols., 1784-91).

Herder's final and ripest ideal was the regeneration of Christianity through the Bible, the extension of the Reformation to church dogmas corrupted by Oriental and Alexandrian ideas, the restoration of the religion of Christ in contrast to the religion addressed to Christ, the revival of the ecclesiastical theory according to the Gospel of Christ, the renovation of religious language. He never tires of repeating that religion has its place in the mind and feeling,

and that the way of thinking, confidence, kindness, charity, and truth are its quintessence and deepest meaning.

A. Werner.

Bibliography: A very rich literature is indicated in the British Museum Catalogue and Supplement. A complete edition of the Werke, ed. W. Suphan, appeared in 33 vols., Berlin, 1877-99; his Brinnerungen in 2 vols. appeared Stuttgart, 1820; a Lebensbild in 3 vols., Erlangen. 1846-1848; Ungedruckte Briefs, 3 vols., Frankfort, 1856-57; Brute von and an Herder, 3 vols., Leipsic, 1861-62; Briefs an Hamann, Berlin, 1889. Consult: A. Werner, Herder ale Theologe, Berlin, 1871; R. Haym, Herder naeh seinem Leban and Wirken, 2 vols., ib. 1877-85; E. Kiihnemann, Herder, Leipsic, 1904; H. Dechent, Herder und die dethetieche Betrachtung der heiligen Schrift, Lessen, 1904; K. Muthesius, Herder's Familienleben, Berlin, 1904; O. Baumgarten, Herder's Lebenmerk und die religiöse Frage der Gepenuiart, Tübingen, 1905; R. Weilandt, Herders Theorie von der Religion, Berlin, 1905; R. Stephan, Herder in Backeburp, Tübingen, 1905.