EHRHARD, ALBERT. — Historian and hagiographer, born on 14 March 1862 at Herbitzheim in Alsace, died at Bonn on 23 September 1940. After theological studies at the Seminary of Strasbourg, he took a degree in theology at Würzburg (1888) and pursued further studies in Rome (1888–1889). He then enjoyed a rapid academic career: he was professor at the Seminary of Strasbourg (1889–1892), and at the Universities of Würzburg (1892–98), Vienna (1898–1902), Freiburg in Br. (1902–1903), Strasbourg (1903–18), and Bonn (1920–27). This splendid rise corresponded to his valuable publications, which concerned almost the whole of Christian antiquity, especially patristics and Byzantine theological and hagiographical literature.
In the Strasburger Theologische Studien (1 [1894], nos. 4–5), he reported on patristic studies published from 1880 to 1884, a work continued for the years 1884–1900 in Die altchristliche Literatur (Freiburg in Br. 1900). In the 2nd edition of Krumacher, pp. 37–218 are his. Having been commissioned by A. Harnack to collect the Greek Acta Martyrum, he devoted himself to the search for manuscripts in Europe and the East, without being able to complete this preparatory work. At his death he had published in Texte und Untersuchungen (50, Leipzig 1937, and 51, ibid. 1938): Überlieferung und Bestand der hagiographischen und homiletischen Literatur der griechischen Kirche. Three fascicles of the third volume had been printed. Alongside works of pure scholarship, he published, for the educated classes, various works, of which the following may be mentioned: Die Kirche der Märtyrer (Munich 1932); under the general title “The Catholic Church through the Changing of Times and Peoples” (2 vols.: Urkirche und Frühkatholizismus, Bonn 1935, and Die altchristliche Kirchen im Westen und im Osten, ibid. 1937). These eminent works, distinguished by depth of learning, clarity of exposition, and methodological finesse, are in fact a scientific apology for the Catholic religion and the Church, and show how unfounded were the suspicions from which he suffered at the beginning of the century. Pius XI held him in very high esteem.
BBL., W. Kosch, Das katholische Deutschland, I, Augsburg 1930, p. 585; B. Altaner, A. E., in Historisches Jahrbuch, 61 (1941), pp. 439–64. Livario Oliger