Hundeshagen, Karl Bernhard

Hundeshagen, Karl Bernhard a Reformed theologian of Germany, was born January 10, 1810, at Friedewald, Hesse. He studied at Giessen and Halle, commenced his academical career at the former place in 1830, and accepted a call in 1834 as professor in the newly founded university of Berne. In 1846 his anonymous work, Der deutsche Protestantismus, seine Vergangenheit und seine heutigen Lebensfragen, appeared, and fell like a flash of lightning in that troubled period. "This remarkable work," says Schaff (in his Germany, its Universities, Theology, and Religion, Philadelphia, 1857, page 401), "is a manly and bold, yet well-meant and patriotic exposure of the religious, political, and social diseases of modern Germany, and represents, almost prophetically, the peculiar crisis which preceded the outbreak of the political earthquake of 1848. The author develops, first, the nature and object of Protestantism in its original form, then he traces the rise and power of recent anti-Christianity in Germany, its causes and effects, following it out even to the moral destitution of German emigrants in foreign countries; and finally he discusses the movements and questions which agitated the country in the, last ten years before the revolution. He accounts for the development of modern infidelity in the bosom of German Protestantism, to a considerable extent, by the political reaction since the Congress of Vienna, which crippled the free motion of national life, violently suppressed all political discontent, and indirectly forced the bitter hostility to the existing order of things to vent itself intellectually upon the Church and Christianity. He thinks that, a healthy religious life of a nation can only unfold itself on the soil of rational political freedom, as the example of England and the United States prove better than all arguments." This work made Hundeshagen's reputation, and he was at once called to Heidelberg as professor of New Testament exegesis and Church history, where he continued to labor for twenty years (1847-67). In 1867 he accepted a call to Bonn, where he spent his last years in peaceful and friendly relations with his colleagues, although a great sufferer in body. He rejoiced in the restoration of the German empire in 1870, and greeted the hour of his departure with Christian fortitude and joyfulness. He died June 2, 1873. Hundeshagen was one of the most prominent and original theologians which the Reformed Church of Germany has given in this century to the service of the Evangelical Church. His peculiar importance consisted in this, that in his own way he showed how certain features of the Reformed Church might be advantageously applied to the living Christianity of the day. He emphasized the ethical principle in Protestantism over against a mere dogmatic or critical intellectualism, and laid stress upon the social element in the Church, which was languishing by reason of its amalgamation with the State. Besides the work mentioned above, Hundeshagen published, De Agobardi Archiepiscopi Lugdunensis Vita et Scriptis (Giessen, 1831): — Epistolas Aliquot Ineditas Martini Buceri, Joannis Calvini, Theodori Bezae Aliorumque ad Historiam Ecclesiasticam Magnes Britanniae, Edidit (Berne, 1840): — Ueber den Einfuss des Calvinisus auf die Ideen von Staat und staatsburgerlicher Freiheit (1842): — Die Conflikte des Zwinglianismus, Lutherthums end Calvinismus in der bernischen Landeskirche von 1522-1558 (1843): — Die Bekenntniss-Grundlage der vereinigten evangelischen Kirche in Baden (1851): — Ueber die Natur und die geschichtliche Entwicklung ders Humanitdtsidee in ihren Veirhaltniss zu Stat und Kirche (1853): — Der Weg zu Christo (eod.). A collection of his essays and shorter writings was published by professor Christlieb (Gotha, 1874, 2 volumes). See Christlieb, K.B. Hundeshagen, eine Lebensskizze (Gotha, 1873); Riehm, in Theolog. Studien und Kritiken, 1874, part 1; Plitt-Herzog, Real-Encyklop. s.v.; Lichtenberger, Encyclop. des Sciences Religienses, s.v.; Zuchold, Bibl. Theol. 1:569 sq. (B.P.)