JUNGMANN, JOSEF

Jesuit authority in homiletics and aesthetics; b. Münster, Westphalia, Nov. 12, 1830; d. Innsbruck, Nov. 25, 1885. In 1850 he began his philosophical and theological studies at the German College in Rome and upon their completion in 1855 he was ordained. Two of his brothers also studied at the German College and became priests. His brother Bernard (1833–95) was a lecturer at the University of Louvain and wrote on a wide variety of philosophical and theological topics. On May 5, 1857, Josef entered the Society of Jesus. In 1858, even before the end of his novitiate, he was made professor of homiletics in the reestablished faculty of theology at the University of Innsbruck. He remained at the University lecturing in homiletics and catechetics for many years, exercising an extraordinary influence over the many students who came under his direction. A prolific author of books and articles, he is particularly well known for his specialized treatises on homiletics, aesthetics, and devotion to the Sacred Heart. [For a commentary on Jungmann's work, see Croce's article in Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie (1958) 193–199.] Jungmann's principal works are: Theorie der geistl. Beredsamkeit (2 v. 1877–78; Michael Gatterer, the author's colleague, edited a fourth and much abbreviated edition in 1908 excluding the section on catethetics); Die Schöneit und die schöne Kunst (1886), reedited under the title of Aesthetik (2 v. 1884); Zur Verehrung U.L. Frau (1879); Die Andacht zum hl. Herzen Jesu u. die Bedenken gegen dieselbe (1885); Das Gemüt und das Gefühlsvermögen der neueren Psychologie (1885); and the Gefahren belletristischer Lecture (1872).

Bibliography: c. sommervogel, Bibliotèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, 11 v. (Brussels-Paris 1890–1932) 4:884–885. l. koch, Jesuiten-Lexikon: Die Gesellschaft Jesu einst und jetzt (Paderborn 1934); photoduplicated with rev. and suppl., 2 v. (Louvain-Heverlee 1962) 944.

[c. sevilla]