Hermes, Georg

Born into a family of wealthy peasants. He was educated in 1792-1798 at the University of Westphalia Wilhelm in Münster, where he studied philosophy and theology. From 1798 he taught religion at the gymnasium, in 1799 he was ordained to the priesthood. In 1807, after the publication of his first work, he was appointed professor of dogmatic theology in Münster. From 1820 he taught at the Rhine University of Friedrich-Wilhelm in Bonn , where he worked until the end of his life; At the same time he was a member of the council at the Cologne Cathedral and was an active figure in Catholic education.

Best known as the founder of "Hermesianism" (Hermesianism) - an anthropocentric system of substantiation of the Catholic faith . As a priest and at the same time engaged in philosophy (in particular, studying the religious views of Immanuel Kant ), Hermes came to the conclusion that although the basic truths of religion (the existence of God, the possibility and reality of revelation) cannot be denied, but the private doctrines of Christianity can be recognized as true only because which do not contradict the results of natural revelation, that is, the mind. When he declared that from the decrees of the Council of Trent he recognized only those that did not contradict reason, he broke with traditional theology and became the object of criticism from numerous theologians.

After his death, a special school of "Hermesians" arose from his students and followers, especially established in Trier, Bonn and Breslau. Its printed organ was the Zeitschr. f. Philos, u. kath. Theologie. "

On September 25, 1835, Pope Gregory XVI officially condemned the works of Hermes in his encyclical, after which they entered the Index of Prohibited Books , and the Cologne archbishop forbade students of the theological faculty in Bonn from attending lectures by Hermesians. The latter tried their best to justify their teacher, went to Rome, where they proved that in Hermes’s works there were no such ideas that deserved condemnation, but to no avail. Between adherents and opponents of Hermes, there was a fierce polemic, ending with some of the former being deprived of their professorships (for example, professors Brown and Achterfeld in Bonn in 1844), while others had betrayed their teacher and abandoned his views. In 1847, the condemnation of the works of Hermes was confirmed by Pope Pius IX .

The most famous works:

• Untersuchungen über die innere Wahrheit des Christenthums (Münster, 1805),
• "Einleitung in die christkatholische Theologie" (the first part was published in 1810, the second in 1829; work on this work was not completed).

In 1831-1834, after the death of Hermes, his students published his five-volume work, Christkatholische Dogmatik.

• Hermes, Georg // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Hermes, Georg // The Catholic Encyclopedia
• Hermes, Georg // NDB (German)
• Hermes, Georg // ADB (German)
• Hermes, Georg // Nordisk Familjebok (Swedish)