Baron von Friedrich Hugel

Friedrich Hügel, Baron von , 1852-1925, British Roman Catholic religious writer, b. Florence; son of an Austrian diplomat. After his marriage (1873), Hügel lived in England. He wrote The Mystical Element of Religion as Studied in St. Catherine of Genoa and Her Friends (1908), a classic in the study of mysticism. Other works include Eternal Life (1912) and Essays and Addresses on the Philosophy of Religion (1921 and 1926). Through letters and essays he exerted a profound influence on the modernism movement within the Roman Catholic Church. Hügel defended the methods of modern biblical scholarship in the face of growing papal disapproval. Although a Catholic, Hügel saw divine truth in all religions, and he refused to proselytize. He regarded the adoration of God by the creature to be the essence of religion, and he stressed the values common to both the natural and the supernatural life.

Bibliography: See biography by M. de la Bedoyère (1951); studies by J. P. Whelan (1971) and L. F. Barmann (1972).

Hügel, Baron Friedrich von (1852–1925). Roman Catholic philosopher, theologian, and spiritual writer. He befriended A. Loisy and G. Tyrrell, and played an important role in the Modernist movement. His major works include The Mystical Element of Religion as Studied in St Catherine of Genoa and her Friends (1908), Eternal Life (1912), Essays and Addresses in the Philosophy of Religion (2 vols., 1921, 1926), and The Reality of God (1931).

von Hügel, Baron Friedrich (1852–1925), RC theologian and philosopher. He had a cosmopolitan education and settled in England in 1867. He found himself in growing accord with the cultural and liberalizing tendencies in the RC Church and several of the leaders of the Modernist Movement became his friends. In 1908 he published The Mystical Element of Religion as studied in St Catherine of Genoa and her Friends. It was followed by an article on Jn. in the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911), Eternal Life (1912), Essays and Addresses on the Philosophy of Religion (1921–6), and The Reality of God (1931; part of a course of Gifford Lectures which he was unable to deliver). He was concerned with the relation of Christianity to history, the place of human culture in the Christian life, and the significance of eschatology. He saw the Institutional, the Intellectual, and the Mystical as the three abiding elements in religion. He became one of the chief religious influences in cultured circles in England, more so outside the RC Church than within it.