Johann Leonhard Hug (1 June 1765 in

Constance Constance may refer to: Places * Constance, Kentucky, United States, an unincorporated community * Constance, Minnesota, United States, an unincorporated community * Mount Constance, Washington State, United States * Lake Constance (disambiguat ...

– 11 March 1846 in

Freiburg im Breisgau Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...

), was a German

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

theologian Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of ...

, orientalist and

biblical scholar Biblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse disciplines to the study of the Bible, with ''Bible'' referring to the books of the canonical Hebrew Bible in mainstream Jewish usage and the Christian Bible including the can ...

Life

In 1783 he entered the

University of Freiburg The University of Freiburg (colloquially ), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (), is a public university, public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The university was founded in 1 ...

, where he became a pupil in the seminary for the training of priests, and soon distinguished himself in classical and Oriental philology as well as in biblical exegesis and criticism. In 1787 he became superintendent of studies in the seminary, and held this appointment until the breaking up of the establishment in 1790. In the following year he was called to the Freiburg chair of

Oriental languages Asia is home to hundreds of languages comprising several families and some unrelated isolates. The most spoken language families on the continent include Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Japonic, Dravidian, Indo-European, Afroasiatic, Turkic, ...

and

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

exegesis Exegesis ( ; from the Ancient Greek, Greek , from , "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation (philosophy), interpretation of a text. The term is traditionally applied to the interpretation of Bible, Biblical works. In modern us ...

; to the duties of this post were added in 1793 those of the professorship of

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

exegesis. Declining calls to Breslau,

Tübingen Tübingen (; ) is a traditional college town, university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer (Neckar), Ammer rivers. about one in ...

, and thrice to

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

, Hug continued at Freiburg for upwards of thirty years, taking an occasional literary tour to

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

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. In 1827 he resigned some of his professorial work, but continued in active duty until in the autumn of 1845 he fell ill and died on 11 March 1846.

Johann Martin Augustin Scholz Johann Martin Augustin Scholz (8 February 1794 – 20 October 1852) was a German Roman Catholic orientalist, biblical scholar and academic theologian. He was a professor at the University of Bonn and travelled extensively throughout Europe a ...

was his pupil.

Works

Hug's earliest publication was the first installment of his ''Einleitung''; in it he argued against

Johann Gottfried Eichhorn Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (16 October 1752, in Dörrenzimmern – 27 June 1827, in Göttingen) was a German Protestant theologian of the Enlightenment and an early orientalist. He was a member of the Göttingen school of history. Education and ...

in favour of the "borrowing hypothesis" of the origin of the

Synoptic Gospels The gospels of Gospel of Matthew, Matthew, Gospel of Mark, Mark, and Gospel of Luke, Luke are referred to as the synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in a similar sequence and in similar or sometimes identical ...

, maintaining the priority of Matthew, and asserting that the present Greek text was the original. His subsequent works were dissertations on the origin of alphabetical writing (''Die Erfindung der Buchstabenschrift'', 1801), on the antiquity of the ''Codex Vaticanus'' (1810), and on ancient mythology (''Untersuchungen über den Mythos der berühmtern Völker der alten Welt. Vorzüglich der Griechen; dessen Entstehen, Veränderungen und Innhalt'', 1812); a new interpretation of the ''

Song of Solomon The Song of Songs (), also called the Canticle of Canticles or the Song of Solomon, is a biblical poem, one of the five ("scrolls") in the ('writings'), the last section of the Tanakh. Unlike other books in the Hebrew Bible, it is erotic poe ...

'' (''Des hohe Lied in einer noch unversuchten Deutung'', 1813), to the effect that the lover represents King Hezekiah, while by his beloved is intended the remnant left in

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

after the deportation of the

ten tribes The Ten Lost Tribes were those from the Twelve Tribes of Israel that were said to have been exiled from the Kingdom of Israel after it was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire around 720 BCE. They were the following: Reuben, Simeon, Dan, Naph ...

; and treatises on the indissoluble character of the matrimonial bond (''De conjugii christiani vinculo indissolubili commentatio exegetica'', 1816) and on the Alexandrian version of the

Pentateuch The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () o ...

(1818). His ''Einleitung in die Schriften des Neuen Testaments'', his major work, was completed in 1808 (fourth German edition, 1847; English translations by Daniel Guilford Wait, London, 1827, and by David Fosdick and Moses Stuart, New York, 1836; French partial translation by J. E. Cellerier, Geneva, 1823). In the portion relating to the history of the text he holds it to have been current up to the middle of the 3rd century only in a common edition, of which recensions were afterwards made by Hesychius, an Egyptian bishop, by

Lucian of Antioch Lucian of Antioch (Greek: Λουκιανός Αντιοχείας c. 240 – January 7, 312), known as Lucian the Martyr, was a Christian presbyter, theologian and martyr. He was noted for both his scholarship and ascetic piety. History Accordin ...

and by

Origen Origen of Alexandria (), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an Early Christianity, early Christian scholar, Asceticism#Christianity, ascetic, and Christian theology, theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Early cent ...

. From 1828 until it ceased to be published in 1834, Hug was a regular contributor to the ''Zeitschrift für die Geistlichkeit des Erzbisthums Freyburg''. Hug was also the first editor (from 1839 until his death in 1846) of the newly founded ''Zeitschrift für Theologie,'' published by the Catholic Theological Faculty in Freiburg.
''Hug's introduction to the New Testament''
transl. by D. Fosdick and

Moses Stuart Moses B. Stuart (March 26, 1780 – January 4, 1852) was an American biblical scholar. Life and career Moses Stuart was born in Wilton, Connecticut on March 26, 1780. He was brought up on a farm, then attended Yale University graduating with hig ...

, Andover 1836 * ''Die mosaische Geschichte des Menschen'', Frankfurt 1793; * ''Die Ursprünge der menschlichen Erkenntnis'', Basel 1796;
''Einleitung in die Schriften des Neuen Testaments''
2 Te., 1808 (1847²);
''De antiquitate Codicis Vaticani commentatio''
Freiburg: Herder 1810;
''Untersuchungen über den Mythos der berühmtern Völker der alten Welt Vorzüglich der Griechen; dessen Entstehen, Veränderungen und Innhalt''
Freiburg 1812 (1823²); * ''Das hohe Lied einer noch unversuchten Deutung'', 1813; * ''J. L. M., Schutzschr. f. seine Deutung des Hhld. u. dessen weitere Erl.'', Freiburg 1815; * ''De conjugii christiani vinculo indissolubili commentatio exegetica'', 1816; * ''De Pentateuchi versione Alexandrina commentatio'', 1818; * ''Gutachten über das Leben Jesu v. David Friedrich Strauß'' (1835), 2 Te., 1840–44 (l8542)

References

External links

*
Johann Leonhard Hug (1765–1846) - Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg

Bibliographie Johann Leonhard Hug - Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg

A. Maier, ''Gedächtnissrede auf Joh. Leonh. Hug'' (Freiburg 1847)
* W. Müller

in: ''Neue Deutsche Biographie'' (NDB). Band 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, p. 8. * K. Werner, ''Geschichte der kath. Theol. in Deutschland'', 527–533 (1866).
Works of Hug
at the Internet Archive * Attribution: {{DEFAULTSORT:Hug, Johann 1765 births 1846 deaths People from Konstanz 19th-century German Catholic theologians German orientalists German biblical scholars Roman Catholic biblical scholars Old Testament scholars New Testament scholars 19th-century German male writers German male non-fiction writers