THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
wonderfully prepared the renovation of the Christian faith, the deliverance of the spirit of religion from the law of a dead form. Herder fought against the insipid and weak neology as well as against rigid orthodoxy. The Bible was all and everything to him. In the different epochs of his development he always was its defender, the cultivator of truly Protestant principles, an honest judge of the disputing parties, a prophet of the regeneration of Christianity, a speaker for Christian humanity. He does not dispute, like a scholastic theologian, for words, forms, theological formulas, but for the eternal truth of the gospel of love. He is not afraid to acknowledge the mythical, traditional, poetical elements in Bible history, but he always tries to set forth the highest ideas of God in their glory. He is neither a dry materialist nor a bombastic metaphysician. He wants to be a Bible-theologian in the spirit of Luther, and has become the " John the Baptist of modern theology."
Of his theological works the following may be mentioned here: Die alteste Urkunde des Menschen-
geschlechts (2 vols., Riga, 1774-76), in- Theological quiries into the first two chapters of Works. Genesis; two contributions to New
Testament theology entitled Erlavterungen aus einer neugeoffneten morgenlandischen Quelle (the Zend-Avesta; 1775) and Briefe von zwei Brudern Jesu in unserem Kanon (the Epistles of James and Jude; 1775); also Provinzialblatter an Prediger (1774), an apology against the theology of the Aufkldrung. These works Herder published while at Btickeburg. At Weimar he published Lieder der Liebe (the Song of Solomon, " the purest and sweetest love-poetry of old times "; 1778); Maran Atha oder das Buck von der Zukunft des Herrn (the Apocalypse; 1779); Briefe uberdas Studium der Theologie (1780-81), a kind of theological encyclopedia, including a whole series of essays and inquiries of exegetic and dogmatic contents about the " Redeemer according to the First Three Gospels "; the " Son of God according to St. John the Evangelist, the Facts of Whitsuntide, and of the Resurrection "; about the " Spirit of Christianity " ; "Religion in Comparison with Dogmatic Opinions and Customs " ; " Christianity and anti-Christianity"; Vom Geist der ebrdischen Poesie (2 vols., 1782- 1783; Eng. transl., Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, 2 vols., Burlington, 1833), a book that broke a path for the study of Hebrew Poetry (see Hebeew Language and Literature, III.). Much that is of value has also been preserved in Herder's occasional addresses and sermons. His deepest views are revealed in his philosophical works concerning God, " Perception and Feeling," and in the Ideen zur Geschichte der Philosophie der Menschheit (4 vols., 1784-91).
Herder's final and ripest ideal was the regeneration of Christianity through the Bible, the extension of the Reformation to church dogmas corrupted by Oriental and Alexandrian ideas, the restoration of the religion of Christ in contrast to the religion addressed to Christ, the revival of the ecclesiastical theory according to the Gospel of Christ, the renovation of religious language. He never tires of repeating that religion has its place in the mind and feeling,
and that the way of thinking, confidence, kindness charity, and truth are its quintessence and deepest meaning. A. Werner.
Bibliography: A very rich literature is indicated in the British Museum Catalogue and Supplement. A complete edition of the Werke, ed. W. Suphan, appeared in 33 vols. Berlin, 1877-99; his Erinnerungen in 2 vols, appeared Stuttgart, 1820; a Lebensbild in 3 vols., Erlangen, 1846- 1848; Ungedruckte Briefe, 3 vols., Frankfort, 1856-57- Briefe von und an Herder, 3 vols., Leipsic, 1861-62; Briefe an Hamann, Berlin, 1889. Consult: A. Werner, Herder als Theologe, Berlin, 1871; R. Haym, Herder nach seinem Leben und Wirken, 2 vols., ib. 1877-85; E. Kuhnemann Herder, Leipsic, 1904; H. Dechent, Herder und die asthetische Betrachtung der heiligen Schrift, Giessen, 1904; K. Muthesius, Herder's Familienleben, Berlin, 1904; O. Baumgarten, Herder's Lebenswerk und die religiose Frage der Gegenwart, Tubingen, 1905; K. Weilandt, Herders Theorie von der Religion, Berlin, 1905; R. Stephan, Herder in Biickeburg, Tubingen, 1905.
HERDING. See Pastoral Life, Hebrew.
HERESY : A view or opinion not in accord with the prevalent standards. The Greek word hairesis, meaning originally a choice, then a self-chosen belief, is applied by the Fathers as early as the third century to a deviation from the fundamental Christian faith, which was punished by exclusion from the Church. From the end of the fourth century the emperors accepted the view that they were bound to use their temporal power against heretics for the maintenance of purity of doctrine; Theodosius the Great attempted to exterminate heretics by a system of penalties, which was extended by his successors and maintained by Justinian. Any deviation from the orthodox belief might be punished by infamy, incapacity to hold office or give testimony, banishment, and confiscation of property; the death penalty was only prescribed for certain sects, such as the Manichean. The severer punishments were imposed on the leaders of heretical sects, or for the conferring and receiving of orders within them and for public gatherings. This legislation was not accepted in the Merovingian kingdom, which left it to the Church to combat heresy with spiritual weapons; the Visigothic law, on the other hand, took the same standpoint as the Roman. The Carolingian period provided penalties for the practise of paganism; but in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the rise and spread of heretical sects, especially the Cathari, led to active ecclesiastical legislation against heresy. As early as the eleventh century, the secular authorities in France and Germany had punished individual heretics with death, and the councils of the twelfth declared them bound to use their power in this way. While Frederick I. and II., and Louis VIII., IX., and X. of France were enacting laws of this kind, the ecclesiastical view that heresy came by right before the Church's tribunal led to the erection of special church courts with a procedure of their own (see Inquisition; Jurisdiction, Ecclesiastical). In the present Roman Catholic practise, heresy is the wilful holding by a baptized person of doctrines which contradict any article of faith defined by the catholic Church, or which have been condemned by a pope or a general council as heretical, provided that the holder knows the right faith and makes open profession of his departure from it. The penalty is excommunicatio major lata sententim, which