THEINER, AUGUSTIN

THEINER, AUGUSTIN. — Priest and historian, born in Breslau on 11 April 1804, died at Civitavecchia on 8 August 1874. The son of a German father and a Polish mother, he had as his elder brother Johann Anton T., who persuaded him to devote himself to legal and historical studies.

He contributed, in the section concerning the origin and historical development of ecclesiastical celibacy, to the work published by his brother in 1828; having subsequently taken degrees in philosophy and jurisprudence, he devoted himself to the study of canon law. For an erudite monograph on the formation of the decretals of Gregory IX (Commentatio de Romanorum Pontificum epistolarum decretalium antiquis collectionibus et de Gregorii IX Pontificis Maximi decretalium codice, Leipzig 1829), he was offered a university chair in Berlin, which T. declined in order to visit libraries, archives, and museums throughout Europe in search of subjects for study. In Paris he met Lamennais, and, on the advice of the bishop of Orléans, Beauregard, and of Moehler, he came to Rome in 1833 and withdrew into the Seminary of S. Eusebio. He made an act of submission for the errors disseminated in the work on ecclesiastical celibacy and gave an account of his conversion in a work published, also in an Italian version, in 1834, under the title Il Seminario ecclesiastico a gli otto giorni a S. Eusebio in Roma. Ordained a priest, in 1839 he entered the Congregation of the Oratory, and in the library of S. Maria Nuova in Vallicella he resumed the historical studies that he had never abandoned during the preceding years. As early as 1836 he had published the Disquisitiones in praecipuas canonum et decretalium collectiones; and later other writings, such as that on the condition of Catholicism in Poland and Russia (Die neuesten Zustände der katholischen Kirche in Polen und Russland, 1841), or on particular events in the history of religion and the Church in the Germanic countries. In 1849 he polemicized with Rosmini and criticized his thesis on the election of bishops, defended in Le Cinque Piaghe della Chiesa (Lettera storico-critica intorno alla elezione dei vescovi mediante il clero ed il popolo, Naples 1849). Highly welcomed by Pope Pius IX, T. was commissioned by him to compose a history of the pontificate of Clement XIV to counter that which Crétineau-Joly had recently published. Appointed by the Pope coadjutor to the prefect of the Vatican Archive, with right of succession, in March 1851, he was able to gather and study the documents necessary for that work, which was printed in 1853, causing a great stir because of its opposition to the Jesuits and eliciting numerous refutations that were more accurate and better founded, among them those by G. Boero (v.) and F. X. de Ravignan (v.). Appointed prefect of the Archive in November 1855, T., as a continuation of Baronius’s Annales ecclesiastici, published three volumes in 1856, carrying the narrative through to the end of the pontificate of Gregory XIII; he also edited a new edition of the same Annales, in 37 volumes (Bar-le-Duc 1864–85). From the documents of the Vatican Archive he drew: Vetera Monumenta Historica Unghariam Sacram Illustrantia (2 vols., 1859); Polonia (4 vols., 1860–64); Slavi meridionali (2 vols., 1863); Irlanda e Scozia (1864); Monuments historiques relatifs aux règnes d'Alexis Michaëlovitch, Feodor II et Pierre le Grand (1859). The Histoire des deux Concordats de la République française et de la République cisalpine conclus en 1801 et en 1803 (1869) provoked new controversies. Favorable to the anti-infallibilists, during the ecumenical Council T. communicated the internal regulations of the Council of Trent to Cardinal Hohenlohe, thereby violating official secrecy, for which reason Pius IX removed him from the post of prefect. After his death, the incomplete edition of the Acta genuina Concilii Tridentini (2 vols.) appeared in Zagreb. T.’s scholarly production is distinguished less by sound criticism and historical depth than by its wealth of data and information, although these are not always fully reliable.

His brother JOHANN ANTON, born in Breslau on 15 December 1799, died there on 15 May 1860, was also a priest and writer. Ordained in 1832, two years later he was appointed extraordinary professor of exegesis and canon la-

canon law at the University of Breslau. Having obtained his doctorate in theology and canon law in 1826, he engaged in intense reformist activity through the writings Die katholische Kirche in Schlesien (1826) and Einführung der erzwungenen Ehelosigkeit bei den christlichen Geistlichen und ihre Folgen (1828); in the latter, written in collaboration with his brother Augustin, he violently attacked ecclesiastical celibacy. Both writings were placed on the Index, respectively in 1826 and 1829. Persisting in his activities, he had to leave his chair in 1830 and became parish priest at Polsnitz, then at Grüssau and Hundsfeld. He subsequently openly joined Ronge’s “German Catholic” movement and was excommunicated in 1845. Reduced to the lay state, he headed the “German Catholic” community of Breslau and soon clashed with Ronge, whom he attacked in 1845 in the writing Reformatorische Bestrebungen in der katholischen Kirche, which was likewise placed on the Index. From 1855 to 1860 he was secretary of the University Library of Breslau. He died without having been reconciled with the Church.