HERMES, hEr'ines, Georg, German theo logian: b. Dreyerwalde, Westphalia, 22 April 1775; d. Bonn, 26 May 1831. He studied the ology at the University of Munster, became a teacher in the gymnasium of that city, and in 1807 professor of dogmatic theology in the university. When the Prussian government established the University of Bonn, Hermes was appointed to the chair of Catholic the ology (1819). Here he began to distinguish himself by his attempts to found a speculative, philosophic and dogmatic school in the Church itself, delivering a series of lectures which caused great sensation by aiming at an alliance between Protestants and Catholics. This at tempt to base the positive theology of the Church (a doctrine known as Hermesianism) drew around him great numbers of. followers. Many of these in time filled chairs of theology and set forth their views in conjunction with their master in a magazine, the Zeitschrif t fiir Philosophie and katholische Theologie, pub lished at Cologne from 1832. The method which Hermes advocated insisted that the truth of revelation and of the Catholic Church should first be tested by reason, and that revelation should then be followed. He did not go so far as to declare that all the dogmas in .them selves could be proved a priori, but endeavored to found the right of the Church to teach them on the ground of reason. Hermesianism was
in fact an ingenious effort to base the doctrines of the Church on Kant's system of philosophy. It aroused powerful opposition, being con demned as heretical by a papal letter of 26 Sept. 1835. Hermes' scholars stoutly defended their orthodoxy, many of them repeatedly ap pealing to the Pope, on the ground that the Pope had been misinformed by persons who were ignorant of philosophy and theology alike. The Hermesians admitted that the doctrines specified in the papal brief were heterodox, but alleged that these were not the doctrines of Hermes. The chief adherents of the new school were the professors Braun, Elvenich and Achterfeldt. Hermesianism declined rapidly, however, and by 1850 had become a matter of history. Hermes wrote (Ueber die Warheit des Christentums' (1805) ; ung in die christkatholische Theologie' (2 parts, 1819-29) ; Dogmatick> (1834). Consult Braun and Elvenich, 'Acta Romana' (Hanover 1838); Lichtenberger, 'German Theology in the Nineteenth Cen tury' (Edinburgh 1889); Niedner, 'Philoso phise Explicatis) (Leipzig 1838); Werner, 'Geschichte der katholischen The °logic' (Munich 1866), and the biography by Gla in 'Repertorium der katolisch-theologischeu Literatur' (Vol. I, Paderborn 1904).