Otto Bardenhewer

Photo and signature of Otto Bardenhewer

Bertram Otto Bardenhewer (Mönchengladbach, 16 March 1851 – Munich, 23 March 1935) was a German Catholic patrologist. His Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur is a standard work, re-issued in 2008.[1] For Bardenhewer, a patrologist was not a literary historian of the Church Fathers, but a historian of dogmatic definitions.[2]

Life

He was born the son of a legal advisor and the grandson of a notary.[3]

He was educated at the University of Bonn (Ph.D., 1873) and University of Würzburg. He became a Catholic priest in 1875.[3] In 1879 he became privat-docent of theology at the University of Munich. In 1884 he accepted a call to Münster as professor of Old Testament. Two years later he returned to Munich, as a professor for New Testament exegesis and Biblical hermeneutics, a position he held to 1924.

Works

  • Hermetis Trismegisti qui apud Arabes fertur de castigatione animæ libellus (Bonn, 1873) [3]
  • Des heiligen Hippolytus von Rom Kommentar zum Buche Daniel (Freiburg, 1877) [4]
  • Polychronius, Bruder Theodors von Mopsuestia and Bischof von Apamea (1879) [4]
  • Die pseudo-aristotelische Schrift über die reine Gute, bekannt unter dem Namen "Liber de Causis" (1882) [3][5]
  • Patrologie (1894) [4]
  • Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur (5 vols., 1902 to 1932). [4]

Notes

  1. ^ Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur, introduction by Alfons Fürst, ISBN 978-3-534-20191-4
  2. ^ Hubert Jedin, John Dolan, The Church in the Industrial Age (1981), p. 324 note.
  3. ^ a b c d "Bardenheuer, Bertram Otto". Deutsche Biographie. Retrieved 22 January 2026.
  4. ^ a b c d "Bardenheuer, Bertram Otto". Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22 January 2026.
  5. ^ "Bardenheuer, Bertram Otto, 131847791". Deutsche National Bibloiothek. Retrieved 22 January 2026.