Johann Leonhard Hug


Johann Leonhard Hug, was a German Roman Catholic theologian, orientalist and biblical scholar.

Life

In 1783 he entered the University of Freiburg, 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 and Old Testament exegesis; to the duties of this post were added in 1793 those of the professorship of New Testament exegesis.
Declining calls to Breslau, Tübingen, and thrice to Bonn, Hug continued at Freiburg for upwards of thirty years, taking an occasional literary tour to Munich, Paris or Italy. 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 was his pupil.

Works

Hug's earliest publication was the first installment of his Einleitung; in it he argued against Johann Gottfried Eichhorn in favour of the "borrowing hypothesis" of the origin of the Synoptic Gospels, 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, on the antiquity of the Codex Vaticanus, and on ancient mythology ; a new interpretation of the Song of Solomon, to the effect that the lover represents King Hezekiah, while by his beloved is intended the remnant left in Israel after the deportation of the ten tribes; and treatises on the indissoluble character of the matrimonial bond and on the Alexandrian version of the Pentateuch.
His Einleitung in die Schriften des Neuen Testaments, his major work, was completed in 1808.
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 of the newly founded Zeitschrift für Theologie, published by the Catholic Theological Faculty in Freiburg.