Johann Adam Möhler

Ordained to the priesthood in 1819, he was appointed to a curacy. He returned to Tübingen where he became privatdozent in 1825, extraordinary professor of theology in 1826 and ordinary professor in 1828. His lectures drew large audiences, including many Protestants. The controversies excited by his Symbolik (1832) proved so unpleasant that in 1835 he accepted a call to the university of Munich[?]. In 1838 he was appointed to the deanery of Würzburg, but died shortly afterwards.

Möhler wrote:

• Die Einheit in der Kirche oder das Princip des Katholicismus (Tübingen, 1825)
• Athanasius der Grosse u. d. Kirche seiner Zeit (2 vols., Mainz, 1827)
• Symbolik, oder Darstellung der dogmatischen Gegensätze der Katholiken u. Protestanten nach ihren öffentlichen Bekenntnissschriften (Mainz, 1832; 8th ed., 1871-1872; Eng. trans. by S. B. Robertson, 1843)
• Neue Untersuchungen der Lehrgegensätze zwischen den Katholiken u. Protestanten (1834)
• Gesammelte Schriften u. Aufsatze, edited by Döllinger (1839)
• Patrologie by Reithmayr (1839)

A Biographie by B Wörner was published at Regensburg in 1866.

It is with the Symbolik that his name is chiefly associated; the interest excited by it in Protestant circles is shown by the fact that within two years of its appearance it had elicited three replies of considerable importance, those namely of FC Baur, PK Marheineke and KI Nitzsch. But, although characterized by learning and acuteness, as well as by considerable breadth of spiritual sympathy, it cannot be said to have been accepted by Catholics themselves as embodying an accurate objective view of the actual doctrine of their church.

The liberal school of thought of which Möhler was a prominent exponent was discouraged in official circles, while Protestants, on the other hand, complain that the author failed to grasp thoroughly the significance of the Reformation as a great movement in the spiritual history of mankind, while needlessly dwelling on the doctrinal shortcomings, inconsistencies and contradictions of its leaders.

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.