USENER, HERMANN. – Protestant, classical philologist and historian of religions, b. at Weilburg on 23 October 1834, d. at Bonn on 21 October 1905.
He taught at the Universities of Bern and Greifswald, and finally at Bonn from 1866 to 1902. As a classical philologist, together with Rademacher, he prepared the edition of the rhetorical works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1899, 1904); he concerned himself with philosophy (Epicurea, 1887) and Greek metrics (Altgriechischer Versbau, 1887). As a historian of religions, he studied classical religion and Christianity (Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, I. Das Weihnachtsfest, Bonn 1889, 2nd ed., 1911; II. Christlicher Festbrauch, ibid. 1889; III. Die Sintfluthsagen, ibid. 1896). His most important work in the field of mythology and the history of religions is: Götternamen, Versuch einer Lehre von der religiösen Begriffsbildung, Bonn 1896; 2nd ed. edited by E. Norden, ibid. 1929. His minor writings on religion (Kleine Schriften) were published in 4 vols. in Leipzig (1912–14), edited by R. Wünsch.
U. follows the philological-historical method, while nevertheless taking the contribution of ethnology into account; this is seen above all in the work Götternamen, with which he intends to establish a scientific mythology by associating philology and anthropology. On the basis of his examination of the primitive divine conceptions in the mythology of the Lithuanians and in the Latin Indigitamenta, he constructs a threefold hierarchy of divine beings which proceeds from the simplest—corresponding to the momentary impression produced by their action on primitive man (Augenblicksgötter = «momentary gods»)—through an intermediate category, in which all the primitive divinities of the same type (Sondergötter = «category gods») found in the various religions are to be grouped, to the «personal gods» (Persönliche Götter), who are ultimately the category gods that, especially for linguistic reasons, have assumed a personal form and name. Thus, for example, Apollo, who at first was a Sondergott insofar as he was the sun in its capacity as «warder-off of evils» (apo-pello), becomes from apo-pello Apollo, a personal god rich in prerogatives. This schema recalls that of the anthropological school, which in turn harked back—though without the aid of linguistics—to that of the positive philosophy of A. Comte.