HETTINGER, FRANZ. - Theologian and apologist, b. at Aschaffenburg on 13 Jan. 1813, d. at Würzburg on 25 Jan. 1890. He studied at Aschaffenburg, Würzburg and at the German College in Rome, and took his doctorate in theology at the Gregorian University (1845). After some years of pastoral activity he became a professor at the University of Würzburg, where he taught in succession patrology, introduction to theology (1857), apologetics, homiletics (1867), and dogmatic theology (1874); in the periods 1862-63 and 1867-68 he was also rector of the University. In 1868, together with Hergenröther, he was summoned to Rome as a consultor to the Preparatory Congregation of the Vatican Council.
H. is one of the most brilliant theologians of Würzburg, preferring fundamental theology, which he knew how to treat with depth and rigorous scientific method.
He was moreover 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 congenial, beyond the circle of students of theology, to intellectuals and to the common people.
He had a special fondness 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 sought passionately to penetrate.
His principal works are: Apologie des Christenthums (5 vols., Freiburg im Br. 1863-67; Italian version, 3 vols., Rome 1844-75), in which erudition and richness of style combine for the defense of the truth; the work enjoyed wide success and exercised a profound influence on the minds of the skeptical 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). One may also mention: Die kirchlichen socialen Zustände von Paris (Mainz 1852), Die Liturgie der Kirche (Würzburg 1856); Die kirchliche Vollgewalt des apostolischen Stuhles (Freiburg im Br. 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 the other 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 Br. 1880), Dante und Beatrice (Frankfurt 1883), Dante's Geistesgang (Cologne 1888).
Bibliography5 works
Igino Rogger