RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Herbert Herder
tion of Christ in the Old Testament. Herberger also wrote commentaries on Rev. xxi.-xxii. and published them as Himmlisches Jerusalem (1609). Of his collections of sermons may be mentioned Passionszeiger (1611), Trauerbinden or funeral sermons (7 vols., 1611-21), Evangelische Herzpostille (1613). After his death appeared Epistolische Herzpostille, 97 Predigten fiber Jesus Sirach, and Stoppelpostille (sermons on various texts). Several of his works were reprinted in the nineteenth century. (Ferdinand Cohrs.)
Bibliography: S. F. Lauterbach, Vita, fama et fata Valerii Herbergerii, Leipsic, 1708 (the basis of numerous popular accounts); A. Henschel, Val. Herberger, Halle, 1889; ADB, vol. xii. The volume of selected sermons, ed. Orphal, Leipsic, 1892, contains a biographical introduction.
HERBERT, EDWARD (Lord Herbert of Cherbury). See Deism, I., § 1.
HERBERT, GEORGE: English poet; b. at Montgomery, Wales, Apr. 3, 1593; d. at Bemerton (2 m. w. of Salisbury), Wiltshire, Feb., 1633 (buried Mar. 3). He was a brother of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. At the age of twelve he was sent to Westminster School, and subsequently to Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A., 1613; M.A., 1616). Here his accomplishments secured him a fellowship in 1616, and the public oratorship of the university in 1619, a position which he resigned in 1627. As university orator he came into close contact with the king, and spent much time at court, hoping to obtain preferment in the service of the State. Among his friends were Francis Bacon, Sir Henry Wotton, Izaak Walton, John Donne, and Bishop Andrewes. On the death of James I. in 1625, he withdrew from court life and retired to the home of a friend in Kent to study theology. The following year he was ordained deacon and presented to the prebend of Layton Ecclesia, Huntingdonshire, to which was attached an estate, with a dilapidated church, at Leighton, two miles from Little Gidding, the home of Nicholas Ferrar (q.v.). Under Ferrar's guidance Herbert restored the church; and, indeed, it was largely through Ferrar's influence that he ultimately gave himself completely to a religious life. In Apr., 1630, he was presented by Charles I. to the rectory of Fugglestone with Bemerton, Wiltshire. His short ministry of three years at Bemerton was characterized by such a saint-like devotion to his duties that he was called " Holy George Herbert." Next to Christianity he loved the Established Church. His fame now rests upon the posthumous volume, The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (ed. N. Ferrar, Cambridge, 1633, and often; facsimile reprint, with preface by J. H. Shorthouse, London, 1882). Though his poems are often marred by verbal conceits, their genuine piety and devotional fervor have made them religious classics, and given Herbert a position, shared only by John Keble, as the poet of Anglican theology. Herbert's prose-work, A Priest to the Temple : or, the Country Parson (ed. H. C. Beeching, Oxford, 1898), first published in his Remains (London, 1652), is an excellent treatise on pastoral theology. Of the many editions of Herbert, the best is that by A. B. Grosart, The Complete Works
in Prose and Verse of George Herbert, with valuable introduction (3 vols., London, 1874).
Bibliography: A biographical notice by B. Oley was prefixed to the Country Parson, ed. of 1652 and often in late editions of his poems; the Memoir by Izaak Walton first appeared in 1670, then in the collected lives of Donne, Hooker, ed. of 1674, and often in editions of Herbert's poems. Consult: Life of George Herbert of Bemerton, London, 1893; A. G. Hyde, George Herbert and his Times, ib. 1906.
HERDER, har'der, JOHANN GOTTFRIED:
Superintendent at Weimar, contemporary of Goethe, and influential both in German Life, church affairs and German literature; b. at Mohrungen (62 m. s.s.w. of Konigsberg), East Prussia, Aug. 26, 1744; d. at Weimar Dec. 18, 1803. He studied theology, philosophy, and ancient science at Konigsberg, 1762-64, and had Kant as his teacher and fatherly friend. While still a young clergyman and teacher at the Riga cathedral school, he established his literary reputation by the Fragmente uber die neueste deutsche Litter atur (Riga, 1767) and the Kritischen Bilder (1769). From 1771 to 1776 he had the position of court preacher and councilor of the consistory at Biickeburg; then he was called to Weimar as superintendent to undertake the management of ecclesiastical and school affairs. Here he spent the rest of his life, and here a bronze statue tells of his glory. Herder, the theologian among the classics and the classic author among the German theologians, is equally great in poetry, criticism, in His Great- the history of civilization, literature ness and and art, in philosophy and pedagogics, Ability, in religion, religious inquiry, and theology. Everywhere he sought new paths, found new openings, and inspired minds. The best thinkers of the nation, Lessing, Wieland, Goethe, Lavater, Jacobi, valued him highly. The extent of his knowledge is remarkably wide. He had an open eye for all that is true, good, and beautiful, which always and everywhere has proved the godly instinct of humanity. He united critical sharpness with intuitive geniality, deep learning with inexhaustible productivity. With most ardent diligence he collected the products of human civilization and godly revelation from the Bible, in the mythologies, popular traditions and songs, in the founders of religions and the lawgivers, poets, and thinkers of all nations, and all that he found here and in the philosophers from Zoroaster to Spinoza, Leibnitz, Rousseau, and Shaftesbury, he worked into his philosophy of mankind.
The dry veins of theology, too, were filled with fresh blood by Herder. His sense of truth and love of freedom, his refined taste and wide- His Service minded toleration, have had a very to Theology favorable influence upon religious life and and ideas. Liturgies, homiletics, hymn- Religion, ology owe him as much as the Christian catechism, the study of theology, and the practical training of the clergy. He revived church history, he freed dogmatics from the bonds of scholasticism; he was a great promoter of the esthetic and practical religious estimation of the Bible as well as of its historical and critical value; he discovered the law of a progressing reformation and
Herder
Heretic Baptism