HINSCHIUS, PAUL. — German canonist, born in Berlin on 25 December 1835, died there on 13 December 1898. A student at the Universities of Heidelberg and Berlin, he obtained his doctorate in law at the latter on 10 February 1855. Privatdozent in ecclesiastical law at Berlin (1859), he subsequently became ordinary professor at Halle (1863–1865) and at Berlin (1872–98). A member of the Reichstag and of the House of Lords, he played a prominent part in the preparation of Prussian ecclesiastical legislation (the “May Laws,” 1873 and following years) under the government of Bismarck. He ranks among the most representative exponents of the new school of German ecclesiastical law. A Protestant by religion, he advocates the subordination of the Church to the State on the basis of Erastian-Febronian theories; an outspoken adversary of the Catholic Church, he is generally accurate and fair in reproducing its doctrines and institutions.
Among his works, the voluminous treatise Das Kirchenrecht der Katholiken und Protestanten in Deutschland (6 vols., Berlin 1869–97) stands out for its scholarly value and breadth of content; it remained incomplete at the first part of vol. VI, since it had not yet exhausted the programme of the System des katholischen Kirchenrechts. His critical edition of the pseudo-Isidorian compilation and the chapters of Angilram (Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae et capitula Angilranum, Leipzig 1863) is of great value. Other principal works: Das landesherrliche Patronatrecht gegenüber der katholischen Kirche (Berlin 1856); Beiträge zur Lehre von der Eidesdelation mit besonderer Rücksicht auf das canonische Recht (there 1860); Die preussischen Kirchengeetze des Jahres 1873 (there 1873); Die Orden und Congregationen der katholischen Kirche in Preussen (there 1874; placed on the Index by decree of 11 December 1874).