MÖHLER, JOHANN ADAM. - Theologian, born 6 May 1796 at Igersheim (Württemberg), died 12 Apr. 1838 at Munich. After completing his secondary studies at Mergentheim (1809-13) and Ellwangen (1813-15), he enrolled in the Faculty of Theology at Ellwangen (1816-18), which in 1817 was incorporated into the University of Tübingen. In November 1818 he entered the seminary at Rottenburg and was ordained priest on 18 September of the following year. In September 1822 he became a Privatdozent in ecclesiastical history at the Faculty of Catholic Theology in Tübingen (extraordinary professor in 1826; ordinary professor in 1828). Violent attacks from Protestants following the publication of his *Symbolik* led him to accept (1835) the chair of New Testament exegesis at the University of Munich. His frail constitution could not withstand unremitting labor, and after barely a year of teaching he suspended his lectures in search of a more favorable climate (Merano); appointed dean of the Würzburg Chapter on 22 March 1838, he died twenty days later.
Drey (v.) and Johann Baptist Hirscher (v.), he was influenced by them and followed their method, becoming the leading representative of the Catholic school of Tübingen, which studied Revelation by the historical-genetic method (positive study of Scripture and the Fathers) with a view to grasping its central idea (the organic nature of Revelation), around which to construct a theological synthesis (speculation) that would take account of the dynamic character of revealed truth, conceived as the design God realizes in history (development of dogma). These ideas matured slowly in an atmosphere still burdened by the febronian and anti-Scholastic conceptions of the Enlightenment. The first Tübingen theologians, though striving toward purer regions, did not fully escape them. Möhler, who embodies the perfect type of the Tübingen theologian, bears the marks of his environment in his first major work: *Die Einheit in der Kirche, oder das Prinzip des Katholizismus, dargestellt im Geist der Kirchenväter der drei ersten Jahrhunderte* (Tübingen 1825). Conceived in function of his historical teaching, to demonstrate the organic continuity between Christ and the Church as it emerges from concrete reality, he shows that Jesus, by perpetually acting in his faithful as head in the members through the conceptual influence of the Holy Spirit, gathers all into the mystical and hierarchical unity of the Church. Because of the harmony between inner and outer movements, the internal unity (mystical) has its manifestation and development in the external unity, which is realized and expressed in the magisterium, worship, and hierarchy. The work is therefore divided into two parts: the first, illustrating spiritual unity, is subdivided into four chapters: mystical unity, unity of teaching, multitude without unity (noting the corrosive work of individualism in heresy, a fruit of egoism), unity in multitude (showing how unity in the Church does not destroy individuality and variety). The second, dealing with external unity, likewise comprises four chapters: unity in the bishop, unity in the metropolitan, unity of the *corpus episcoporum*, unity in the primacy of the pope. In this work, which became famous and whose influence was extraordinary, some (Vermeil, Fonck) have sought to trace the origin of that "immortalism" which was later to inspire religious tendencies condemned by Bl. Pius X in modernism (v.). It seems more accurate to recognize here the defects of a romantic spirit, unacquainted with Scholastic precision, which, after attending lectures by Planck, Schleiermacher, and Neander (during his scientific tour of 1823), stood enthusiastically at their feet, rejecting the rationalism and individualism of the cold Enlightenment era in order to gather from the Fathers, studied with new passion, the moving accents with which they spoke of the *Corpus Christi* and the *Mater Ecclesia*, overlooking what light medieval controversies and post-Reformation developments had brought to the ecclesiological problem. In such a frame of mind, the young theologian, though able to produce a warm work marked by flashes of genius, could not avoid certain imperfections that a long anti-Roman legacy carried with II. Möhler himself later recognized this when he admitted that in the original plan of the work the idea of the papacy was not to be included. Objective study of the facts and the inner logic of truth compelled the loyal theologian to add that concluding chapter, which gives the work the seal of Catholic orthodoxy. Hence, more than as a source of modernism, this work—despite the reservations noted—should be regarded as foundational for that movement which reached its glorious conclusion in Pius XII’s encyclical *Mystici corporis* (29 June 1943).
His subsequent writings show further development in Möhler’s thought, increasingly oriented toward orthodoxy and more balanced in his assessment of Scholasticism: *Athanasiu der Grosse und die Kirche seiner Zeit im Kampfe mit dem Arianismus* (Mainz 1827); *Der hl. Anselmus von Canterbury* (ibid. 1827).
The most important work of M., with which he founded a new branch of theological science, is *Symbolik oder Darstellung der dogmatischen Gegenstände der Katholiken und Protestanten, nach ihren öffentlichen Bekanntnisschriften* (Mainz 1832). Considering that for centuries Protestants had been offering courses in their faculties on the doctrinal oppositions dividing Christian Europe, M. thought to transfer this method into the Catholic sphere, introducing an innovation that constituted its most original element and the reason for its success: the rigorously scientific study of opposing doctrines considered in their reciprocal connection. The work, divided into two parts (I, the dogmatic oppositions among Catholics, Lutherans, and Reformed; II, the doctrinal oppositions between Catholics and the smaller Protestant sects), proceeds from the central idea of justification and descends to the individual points that flow from this premise as corollaries: it is an ideological movement that goes from the center to the periphery. According to M., the two great historical phenomena of the Renaissance and the “Reformation” are parallel movements that, breaking the bonds with the past in which science and piety were harmonized, produced Socinian rationalism and Protestant rebellion. Socinianism denied the divinity of Jesus, while Protestantism neglected his humanity; the former exalted reason, the latter despised II. These two errors, extensions of ancient heresies, share common characteristics that constitute the very essence of every heresy: they claim to return to pure Christianity by seeking it in Scripture separated from tradition and the Church. Their subsequent developments are analogous and have led the partisans of both tendencies down paths of a destructive critique of every religious foundation. Between the two extreme theses of Lutheran pietism and Socinian rationalism, the Church walks securely, recognizing in reason distinct and inalienable duties with respect to faith.
The success of this masterful work was incalculable: illustrious scholars of historical and philological sciences (Hutter, Bickell, Hammerstein) owed to the *Symbolik* their first step toward Rome. Döllinger defined M. as the greatest theologian *de re ecclesiologica* of the 19th century; even some Protestants (Augusti, Strauss) did not stint their praise of the author, acknowledging his historical integrity. There were, however, attacks, which were particularly violent on the part of Baur, Nitzsch, and Marheineke. M. responded victoriously with *Neue Untersuchungen der Lehrgegenstände zwischen den Katholiken und Protestanten. Eine Vertheidigung meiner Symbolik gegen die Kritik des Hern Prof. Dr. Baur in Tübingen* (Mainz 1834), writing a new and important chapter on the history of Protestant variations: a noble complement to Bossuet’s work. In the *Symbolik*, M.’s ecclesiological thought reached maturity in the luminous pages where the Church is considered a continuation of the Incarnate Word (an idea that would later be summarized by Leo XIII), in whose teaching the foundation of that intertwining of the human and the divine that accompanies the development of the Mystical Body is indicated.
Numerous are M.’s minor writings (cf. A. Fonek, s.V. in DThC, X, cols. 2054–56). He was an assiduous contributor to the historical journal founded in Tübingen in 1819, *Theologische Quartalschrift*. A critical and complete edition of his minor works and fragments is eagerly awaited; their manuscripts are preserved in Munich (at least before the Second World War, 1939–45).
In his later writings, and especially in the *Neue Untersuchungen*, M. provided important clarifications of his thought, above all in the formal and explicit condemnation of Schleiermacher’s subjectivism. Despite the slight shadows in his theology, M., for his high intellect, sincere faith, and great services rendered to the Catholic cause, truly merits the praise inscribed on his tomb in Munich: *Defensor Dei, litterarum decus, Ecclesiae solamen*.