HEPPE, HEINRICH LUDWIG JULIUS: German Reformed; b. in Cassel Mar. 30, 1820; d. at Marburg July 25, 1879. He studied at Marburg 1839-1843, became privat-docent there 1844, extraordinary professor of theology 1850, and ordinary professor 1864. He is known chiefly as a church historian, and his productive activity in this field began with studies in local history. While serving as pastor at Cassel (1845-48), he was moved by the wealth of electoral Hesse's private and public archives to work over the ecclesiastical past of his more immediate neighborhood, and published Die Geschichte der hessischen Generalsynoden von 1668-1682 (2 vols., Cassel, 1847). In 1849 appeared Die Einfahrung der Verbesserungspunkte in Hessen won 180¢1610.

231

As characteristic of the German Reformed Church, he notes (1) the absolute authority of the divine word of Scripture over every ecclesiastical institution; and (2) the Melanchthonian-Calvinistic doctrine of the Lord's Supper. The Lutheranism of the Formula of Concord is thus decidedly rejected.

Heppe treated the same theme in a series of greater and lesser writings, particularly in his Geschichte des deutschen Protestandsmus in den Jahren 1666-1681 (4 vols., Marburg, 1853-59), and his Dogmatik des deutschen Protestantismus im 16. Jahrhundert (3 vols., Gotha, 1857). In this connection occurred, in the years after 1850, the vehement controversy between Heppe and A. F. C. Vilmar (q.v.), consistorial councilor at Cassel, over the confessional character of the Church of Electoral Hesse. Vilmar asserted that the Church of Hesse was originally Lutheran, and was so still, even though it regarded itself as Reformed, and was thus regarded. The two disputants came to an open feud when Vilmar sought to introduce his theory into the practical life of the Church. Some twenty tracts in rapid succession bear witness to the bitterness of the dispute.

Heppe also published an important Geschichte des deutschen Volkssehulwesens (5 vols., Gotha, 1857-59). Church history, however, was the proper field of his scholastic labor. His Kirchengeschichte beider Hessen (2 vols., Marburg, 1876-78) was the most favorably received of his works, and is not only an excellent historical study, but also a work of piety toward his much loved Hessian country. Lastly, he gave at tention to two peculiar manifestations of devotion --Quietistic mysticism in the Roman Church, and Pietism in the Reformed Church, especially of the Netherlands. The central figure of his Geschichte der quietistischen Mystik in der katholischen Kirche (Berlin, 1875) is Madame Guyon, whom he had orig inally intended to treat in a monograph. By this work Heppe brought to light a domain of church history which till then had lain wholly in the dark. At the close he speaks of similar manifestations in the Evangelical Church, of Labadism and Pietism in the Netherlandish Church, and thus prepares the way for his Geschichte des Pietism= und der mystik in der reformierten Kirche, namentlich der N4eder lande (Leyden, 1879). Heppe's literary activity is the more praiseworthy in that, as university in structor, he occupied the field of systematic theology and delivered carefully elaborated lectures. His lectures on ethics were issued by the writer of this article after Heppe's death (Elberfeld, 1882), and were also translated into Dutch. Heppe likewise took an active part in the practical tasks of the Church, and promoted the founding of a Hessian deaconesses' house, which now exists in Cassel in great prosperity.

A. Kuhnert.

Bibliography: Wolff and Ranks, Zur &rinnerung an H. Heppe, Marburg, 1879; Supplement to Augsburg. ARge- rnedne Zeitung no. 226 1879; Annalen der Uniroeraita Marburg, Marburg, 1879.