Joseph Hergenröther

Joseph Hergenröther (15 September 1824 – 3 October 1890) was a German Church historian and canonist, and the first Cardinal-Prefect of the Vatican Archives.

Born in Würzburg, he was the second son of Johann Jacob Hergenröther, professor of medicine in the University of Würzburg. In 1842 Hergenröther completed with notable success his gymnasium course in his native town, and entered the University of Würzburg to take up a two-year course of philosophical studies, to which he added certain branches of theology. His historical tendencies exhibited themselves at this early age in a dramatic poem entitled Papst Gregor VII (Würzburg, 1841).

Bishop von Stahl took an interest in him, and in 1844 sent him to the Collegium Germanicum at Rome, whither he had already sent Heinrich Joseph Dominicus Denzinger and Franz Hettinger. Among his scholarly teachers were Giovanni Perrone and Carlo Passaglia in doctrinal theology, Tomei in moral theology, Antonio Ballerini in church history, Francis Xavier Patrizi in Scriptural exegesis, and Marzio in canon law.

The political troubles of 1848 prevented the completion of his theological studies at Rome; he was ordained to the priesthood 28 March of that year, and returned to Würzburg, where he pursued his ecclesiastical preparation for another year. In 1849 he was appointed chaplain at Zellingen, and for some time devoted himself to the duties of his office. In 1849 he stood successfully for the degree of doctor of theology before the University of Munich, and offered as his dissertation a treatise on the Trinitarian teaching of St. Gregory Nazianzen (Die Lehre von der göttlichen Dreieinigkeit nach d. heil. Gregor von Nazianz, Ratisbon, 1850). The qualities of the young doctor induced the theological faculty of Munich to offer him a place as instructor (privatdozent) in theology, which he accepted. Following ancient usage, he justified the confidence of the university by a printed thesis (Habilitationschrift) on the later Protestant theories of the origins of the Catholic Church (De catholicæ ecclesiæ primordiis recentiorum Protestantium systemata expenduntur, Ratisbon, 1851). Henceforth he devoted himself without reserve to his professorial duties.

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