Benjamin Herder

Equipped with a thorough, scholarly education, trained in the book business by his father and under Gauthier de Laguionie in Paris, Benjamin had had his views further broadened early in life by travels through Germany, Austria, France, England, and Italy.

Of a character earnest and religious, he was strongly impressed by the Cologne troubles of 1837, and, as in the case of so many of his contemporaries, they gave a direction to his life, and in 1839, at the age of 21, he established a goal of helping to liberate and revive the Catholic Church in Germany.

After theology Herder applied himself with the greatest zest to pedagogies, to the lives and learning of the saints as well as to other edifying biographies; also after a long and cautious delay to the publication of sermons.

After sixteen years of struggling and striving on the part of Herder, all obstacles were overcome, and the work was brought to completion in 1856, thanks chiefly to the support of Hefele.

The subjects to be treated were chosen by Adalbert Weiss, professor at the Freising lyceum, and the editorial chair was held by Joseph Hergenröther until his elevation to the cardinalate, and afterwards by Franz Philip Kaulen, the exegete of Bonn.

The stupendous plan, which Benjamin had cherished since 1841, of building up a "Theologische Bibliothek" (Theological Library) according to an equally logical and symmetrical scheme, he was unable to realize until thirty years later.

Among the earliest were the works of Alban Stolz, popular theologian and teacher, whose Kalender für Zeit und Ewigkeit achieved an extraordinary success.

Of these works the one contrasts Christian life and its historical and cultural development with a purely worldly knowledge and the outlook of the age, while the other strives to harmonize the doctrines of the Church and the results of scientific research.

The Encyclicals of December 1864, and the question of infallibility called forth in the pages of the "Stimmen aus Maria Laach" the comprehensive defence of the authority of the pope, as pastor and teacher, while the controversies concerning the Vatican Council occasioned Hergenröther's masterly "Anti-Janus", afterwards expanded and strengthened in the almost inexhaustible historico-theological essays, the "Katholische Kirche und christlicher Staat in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung und in Beziehung auf Fragen der Gegenwart".

In no undertaking did he allow material gain to be the deciding factor; even in times of crisis–and of such he encountered more than one, beginning with the Baden uprising of 1848, right through the wars which raged between 1859 and 1871, down to the Kulturkampf which crippled the resources of both clergy and people–the end in view alone determined his decision.