HERDER, JOHANN GOTTFRIED vorr. This truly great man, great as a poet, a philosopher, a scholar, an historian, and a divine, was Isom at Mohrungen, 25th August t74.4. His father kept a school for girls, and the young Herder was allowed no books except a Bible and hymn-book. At the age of fifteen he became an amanuensis to Trescho, the pastor of Mohrungen, who discovered his genius, and encouraged his industry. Pre vented by his keen sensitiveness from becoming a surgeon, he studied at Konigsberg, and was allowed to attend Kant's lecture gratis. In i764 he became a teacher in the school at Riga, and in 1767 began to obtain some celebrity as a preacher, and made his debut in literature. In 1769 he tra velled as tutor to the Prince of Holstein, and after various promotions and successes, was appointed general superintendent at Weimar. At this town he long lived in the zenith of his fame and pro sperity, mingling on equal terms with such men as Wieland, Schiller, Gothe, and Jean Paul, and exercising a great and admirable influence both as court-preacher and director of cducation. In 18or he became president of the higher consistory, and was soon after ennobled. He died at Weimar, t8th December 18o3.
Herder's literary greatness is universally recog nised, and it is admitted by all that his writings had no mean share in the work of stimulating the intellect of his countrymen, and giving that mighty impulse to the thoughtful activity of Germany which has produced such grand results. But it has been the fashion to depreciate his direct merits as a theologian, which are of the most important kind. He rendered to modem theology an inesti mable service—a service the effects of which it is al most impossible to overrate—by making philosophy bear directly upon religion, and by infusing a genial and poetic spirit into inquiries which he enriched with an encyclopmdic range of knowledge. Gentle, fresh, clear-sighted, tolerant, liberal, he was at the same time full of firm faith and deep reverence. The light of a pure and lofty genius, the expansive ness of a glowing heart, and the charm of an eloquent and lucid style, give a value even to those of his works which are critically weak or theologically questionable. He has been called the prophetic forerunner of modem theology ;' and Jean Paul Richter beautifully observes that in his works you walk, as it were, amid moonshine, into which the red dawn is already falling ; but one hidden sun is the painter of them both' (Vorsthul der 2Esthetick, sec. 545).
Even Herder's philosophical and literary works had an influence on theology, especially his Ideen zur Philosophie d. Geschichle ilienschheit ; and
his poems are deeply religious in tone and spirit. His general views on doctrine have been selected by A ugusti (Herder's Dogmalik, Jena, 1805), mainly from papers in the Christliche Schriften ; and his opinions on the Christian ministry (which are of a true and lofty kind) are contained in his Provin zialbhilter an Prediger, 1774, and Briefe fiber a'as Sludium a'. Theologie, 1780. His directly exegetical works are Erldulerungen VIM N. T., and short books on the Revelation, and the epistles of James and Jude. These are perhaps the least valuable of his writings, as those on the O. T. are the most valuable. The latter are Aelteste Urkunde d. chengeschlechtes, 1774, an explanation of the earlier part of Genesis from a far wiser and truer stand point than the one usually adopted ; and Geirt der ehraischen Poesie, 1782, a work into which he threw his whole heart, and of which he wrote to Hamann that he had cherished the idea in his heart since childhood,' and to Muller that Ile loved it like a child' (see the Vorrede to Justi's edition, 1825). This is his greatest theological work, and though thirty years subsequent to Lowth's book, De Sacra Poesi, it is no less valu able than its predecessor, and produced a wider effect in raising the poetry of the Bible from the contempt which it had incurred from the superci lious ignorance of shallow classicists. So that both those books opened a new path, and mark a great epoch in the history of Bible exegesis.
Herder's theological works (Siimmtliche Werke zur Theol. una' werc published in 12 vols. at Vienna in 1823, and edited with a biography by his friend, J. G. Midler, at Tubingen, 1803-182o. His Christliche Schriften were published at Riga in 1798, and contain papers on the Gift of Tongues, the Resurrection, the Redeemer, the Son of God, on the Spirit of Christianity, and on Religion. Besides the books already mentioned he wrote Gott, einiqe GesprZiche, Gotha, 1800 ; Christliche Reden und Homilien, edited by J. E. Miiller, 1805 (sketches of sermons, full of thoughtful piety and sug gestive eloquence); Luther's Xatechismus, with an explanation for the use of schools, 1799 ; and Wei n:arise/les Gesangbuch, 'Soo. His Ursprung d. Sprache obtained thc Berlin prize in 1771. He afterv.-ards unwisely retracted this eloquently-ex pounded theory under the influence of Hamann, to whose philosophic views Ile leant. Several of his works have been translated into English.— F. W. F.