Möhler, Johann Adam

MÖHLER, JOHANN ADAM. - Theologian, b. May 6, 1796 at Igersheim (Württemberg), d. April 12, 1838 at Munich. After completing his secondary studies at Mergentheim (1809-13) and at Ellwangen (1813-15), he enrolled in the theological faculty of Ellwangen (1816-18), which in 1817 was incorporated into the University of Tübingen. Having entered the seminary of Rottenburg in Nov. 1818, he was ordained a priest on Sept. 18 of the following year. In Sept. 1822 he became a private lecturer (Privatdozent) in ecclesiastical history in the faculty of Catholic theology at Tübingen (in 1826 extraordinary professor; in 1828 ordinary professor). The violent attacks of which he was the object on the part of Protestants after the publication of the Symbolik induced him to accept (1835) the chair of New Testament exegesis at the University of Munich. His frail constitution did not withstand the incessant work and, after barely a year of teaching, he suspended his lectures in and of the Fathers) with the aim of grasping its central idea (the organic character of Revelation), around which to build a theological synthesis (speculation) that would take into account the dynamic character of revealed truth, conceived as the design that God realizes in history (development of dogma). These ideas matured slowly in an atmosphere still weighed down by the Febronian and anti-Scholastic conceptions of the Aufklärung. The first theologians of Tübingen, though straining toward purer regions, did not succeed in escaping them completely. M., who embodies the perfect type of the Tübingen theologian, bears the marks of his environment in his first great work: Die Einheit in der Kirche, oder das Prinzip des Katholizismus, dargestellt im Geist der Kirchenväter der drei ersten Jahrhunderte (Tübingen 1823). Conceived in function of his historical teaching, to prove the organic continuity between Christ and the Church as it emerges from concrete reality, in it he demonstrates that Jesus, working perpetually in his faithful as head in the members, through the connective influence of the Holy Spirit, gathers all into the mystical and hierarchical unity of the Church. Through the harmony of the interior and exterior movements, the internal (mystical) unity has its manifestation and its development in the external unity, which is realized and expressed in the magisterium, in worship, in the hierarchy. The work is therefore divided into two parts: the first, which illustrates spiritual unity, is subdivided into four chapters: mystical unity, unity of teaching, multitude without unity (shows the corrosive work of the individualism of heresy, the fruit of egoism), unity in the multitude (shows how unity in the Church does not destroy individuality and variety). The second, which treats of 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 wished to discover the origin of that immanentism which was later to fertilize the religious tendencies condemned by Bl. Pius X in modernism (v.). It seems more just to recognize in it the defects of a romantic spirit, ignorant of the precision of the Scholastics, which, after having attended the lectures of Planck, Schleiermacher, Neander (in his scientific tour of 1823 he paused enthusiastically at the foot of their chair), rejects the rationalism and individualism of the cold Enlightenment era, in order to gather from the Fathers, studied with new passion, the moved accents with which they spoke of the Corpus Christi and of the Mater Ecclesia, passing over how much light the medieval struggles and the post-Tridentine deepenings had brought to the ecclesiological problem. In such conditions of spirit, the young theologian, even though he succeeded in composing a warm work, furrowed with flashes and lightning-bolts of genius, could not avoid all those imperfections which an old anti-Roman inheritance carried with it. All this was later recognized by M. himself, when he confessed that the idea of the papacy was not to have entered into the original plan of the work. The objective study of the facts and the internal logic of the truth seeks a more favorable climate (Merano); appointed dean of the Chapter of Würzburg on 22 March 1838, after twenty days he died.

A disciple of Sebastian Drey (v.) and of Johann Baptist Hirscher (v.), he came under their influence and followed their method, becoming the greatest representative of the Catholic school of Tübingen, which studied Revelation with a historico-genetic method (positive study of Scripture imposed on the loyal theologian that concluding chapter which confers on the work the seal of Catholic orthodoxy. Therefore, rather than at the origins of modernism, this work, even with the reservations made, is to be considered at the basis of that movement which had its glorious epilogue in Pius XII's encyclical Mystici corporis (29 June 1943).

The following writings show the further developments of M.'s thought, ever better oriented toward orthodoxy and ever more equitable in evaluating Scholasticism: Athanasius der Grosse und die Kirche seiner Zeit im Kampfe mit dem Arianismus (Mainz 1827); Der hl. Anselmus von Canterbury (ibid. 1827).

M.'s most important work, with which he founded a new branch of theological science, is the Symbolik oder Darstellung der dogmatischen Gegensätze der Katholiken und Protestanten, nach ihren öffentlichen Bekenntnisschriften (ibid. 1932). Considering that for centuries the Protestants in their faculties had held courses on the doctrinal oppositions that divide Christian Europe, M. thought of transferring their method into the Catholic sphere, introducing into it a novelty that constituted its most original element and the reason for its success: the rigorously scientific study of the opposing doctrines considered in their mutual connection. The work, divided into two parts (I, the dogmatic oppositions between Catholics, Lutherans and Reformed; II, the doctrinal oppositions between Catholics and the small Protestant sects), starts from the central idea of justification and descends to the individual points, which spring from the 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 two parallel movements which, by breaking the bonds with the past, in which science and piety were harmonized, produced Socinian rationalism and the Protestant rebellion. Socinianism denies the divinity of Jesus, Protestantism neglects his humanity; the former exalts reason, the latter despises it. These two errors, a prolongation of the ancient heresies, present common characteristics which constitute precisely the essence of every heresy: they claim to return to pure Christianity, seeking it in Scripture separated from tradition and from the Church. Their subsequent vicissitudes are analogous and have led the partisans of the two tendencies onto the paths of a criticism that demolishes every religious foundation. Between the two extreme theses of Lutheran pietism and Socinian rationalism, the Church walks securely, recognizing in reason imprescriptible rights and knowing how to impose on it grave duties in the face of faith. The success of this masterly work was incalculable: illustrious cultivators of the historical and philological sciences (Hurter, Bickell, Hammerstein) owe to the Symbolik their first step toward Rome. Döllinger defined M. the greatest theologian de re ecclesiologica of the 19th century; even some Protestants (Augusti, Strauss) did not stint their praise of the author, recognizing his loyalty as a historian. There was no lack, however, of attacks, which were particularly violent on the part of Baur, Nitzsch, Marheineke. M. responded victoriously with Neue Untersuchungen der Lehrgegensätze zwischen den Katholiken und Protestanten. Eine Vertheidigung meiner Symbolik gegen die Kritik des Herrn Prof. Dr. Baur in Tübingen (Mainz 1934), writing a new important chapter on the history of Protestant variations: a noble complement to the work of Bossuet. In the Symbolik, M.'s ecclesiological thought reached its maturity in the luminous pages where the Church is considered a continuation of the Incarnate Word (an idea that will be summarized by Leo XIII), in whose theandric constitution he indicates the foundation of that interweaving of human and divine which accompanies the development of the Mystical Body.

Numerous are M.'s minor writings (cf. A. Fonck, s. v. in DThC, X, coll. 2054-56). Assiduous was his collaboration on the historic journal founded at Tübingen in 1819, Theologische Quartalschrift. A critical and complete edition of the minor works and fragments, whose manuscripts are preserved in Munich (at least before the world war of 1939-45), is keenly desired.

In his last writings and especially in the Neue Untersuchungen, M. brought important clarifications of his thought, above all in the formal and explicit condemnation of Schleiermacher's subjectivism. Despite the slight shadows of his theology, M., for his lofty intellect, his sincere faith and the great services rendered to the Catholic cause, truly deserves the praise carved on his tomb in Munich: Defensor fidei, litterarum decus, Ecclesiae solamen.

A. M. Ein Gedenklatt zu dessen hundertsten Geburtstag, ivi 1896; L. Monartier, J. A. M. Etude sur sa vie et son temps, Losanna 1897; A. Schmid, Der geistige Entwicklungsgang J. A. M., in Historisches Jahrbuch, 18 (1897), pp. 322-56, 372-99; G. Goyau, L'Allemagne religieuse. Le catholicisme, II, Parigi 1905, pp. 24-42; id., M., ivi s. d.; E. Vermeil, J. A. M. et l'école catholique de Tubingue 1815-40, ivi 1913; L. De Grandmaison, L'école catholique de Tubingue et les origines du modernisme, in Recherches de science religieuse, 9 (1919), pp. 387-409; F. Vigener, Drei Gestalten aus dem modernem Katholizismus: M., Diepenbrock, Döllinger, Monaco 1926; A. Fonck, M. et l'école catholique de Tubingue, in Revue de sciences religieuses, 6 (1926), pp. 250-66; St. Lösch, Die katholisch-theologischen Facultäten zu Tübingen und Giessen 1830-50, in Theologische Quartalschrift, 108 (1927), pp. 159-208; J. Geiselmann, Die Glaubenswissenschaft der katholischen tübinger Schule und ihre Grundlegung durch J. S. Drey, ibid., 111 (1930), pp. 49-117; K. Eschweiler, J. A. M. Kirchenbegriff, Braunsberg 1930; J. Geiselmann, Geist des Christentums und Katholizismus: J. A. M. und die Entwicklung seines Kirchenbegriffs, in Theologische Quartalschrift, 112 (1931), pp. 1-91; P. Pouret, L'unité organique du catholicisme d'après M., in Irenikon, 12 (1935), pp. 328-50, 427-85; M. I. Congar, La pensée du M. et l'ecclésiologie orthodoxe, ibid., 12 (1935), pp. 321-29; L'Église est une. Hommage à I. A. M., Parigi 1938 (con articoli di P. Chaillet, H. Tristram, M. I. Congar); P. Chaillet, Introduction à L'Unité de l'Église, traduit par A. De Lielinfeld, ivi 1938, pp. 9-11; id., Centenaire de M. L'amour et l'unité. Le mystère de l'Église, in Revue apologétique, 66 (1938), pp. 515-40; G. Thils, Le centenaire de M., in Ephemerides theologicae Lovaniennes, 15 (1938), pp. 521-25; J. Geiselmann, J. A. M. und das idealistische Verständnis des Sündenfalls, in Theologische Quartalschrift, 125 (1944), pp. 19-37; F. Hoffmann, J. A. M.: Persönlichkeit und Theologie als Erbe und Verpflichtung, in Pastor Eonus, 40 (1938), pp. 221-40, 347-64; 50 (1939), pp. 12-20; A. Minon, L'attitude de J. A. M. dans la question du développement du dogme, in Ephemerides theologicae Lovaniennes, 16 (1939), pp. 328-84; M.-J. Congar, L'esprit des Pères d'après M., in Esquisse du mystère de l'Église, Parigi 1941, pp. 129-48 con la critica di M.-J. Nicolas, Theologie de l'Église, in Revue thomiste, 46 (1946), p. 372 sgg.; H. Hocedez, Histoire de la théologie au XIXe siècle, I, Bruxelles-Parigi 1949, pp. 231-50 (deciso difensore dell'ortodossia di M.); G. Martini, Catholicismo e storicismo, Napoli 1951, pp. 3-61, 320-26 (di tendenza laicista).

Antonio Piolanti