HETTINGER, FRANZ. — Theologian and apologist, born at Aschaffenburg on 13 January 1813, died at Würzburg on 25 January 1890. He studied in Aschaffenburg, Würzburg, and at the German College in Rome, and took his degree in theology at the Gregorian University (1845). After several years of pastoral activity, he became a professor at the University of Würzburg, where he successively taught patrology, introduction to theology (1857), apologetics, homiletics (1867), and dogmatic theology (1874); during the periods 1862–63 and 1867–68 he was also rector of the University. In 1868 he was summoned to Rome together with Hergenröther as a consultor to the preparatory Congregation of the First Vatican Council.
H. was one of the most brilliant theologians of Würzburg, with a preference for fundamental theology, which he knew how to treat with depth and rigorous scientific method.
He was also one of the most admired sacred orators of his time. His literary taste, refined through the study of classical and Christian antiquity, his solid learning, and his sensitivity to all the values of culture, art, and nature made him appealing, beyond the circle of students of theology, to intellectuals and to the people.
He had a particular affection for Italy, which he visited almost every year and often recalled in his writings: his favorite author was Dante, whose artistic and theological world he passionately sought to penetrate.
His principal works are: Apologie des Christenthums (5 vols., Freiburg im Breisgau 1863–67; Italian version, 3 vols., Rome 1844–75), in which erudition and richness of style are fused in defense of the truth; the work enjoyed broad success and exerted a profound influence on the minds of the misguided and the uncertain. (10th ed., edited by E. Müller, ibid. 1914–23). More rigorously scientific is the other work: Lehrbuch der Fundamentaltheologie (ibid. 1879; 3rd ed., edited by S. Weber, ibid. 1913). The following may also be mentioned: Die kirchlichen socialen Zustände von Paris (Mainz 1852), Die Liturgie der Kirche (Würzburg 1856); Die kirchliche Vollgewalt des apostolischen Stuhles (Freiburg im Breisgau 1874); David Fr. Strauss, ein Lebensbild (ibid. 1875); Die Krisis des Christenthums, Protestantismus und katholische Kirche (ibid. 1886); Aphorismen für Predigt und Prediger (ibid. 1889), and another work on the same subject: Timotheus, Briefe an einen jungen Theologen (ibid. 1891).
As a Dante scholar he wrote: Grundidee und Charakter der Göttlichen Komödie des D. Alighieri (Bonn 1876); Die Theologie der Göttl. Komödie (Cologne 1879); Die Göttl. Komödie des D. Alighieri nach ihrem wesentlicher Inhalt und Charakter dargestellt (Freiburg im Breisgau 1880), Dante und Beatrice (Frankfurt 1883), Dante's Geistesgang (Cologne 1888).