HARDT, hart, HERMANN VON DER: German orientsliat, exegete, and historian; b. at Melle (62 m. s.s.w. of Bremen) Nov. 15, 1680; d. at Helmstedt Feb. 28, 1748. His parents had settled at Melle as refugees from the religious persecution in Holland. He was educated at the gymnasia of Herfurt, Osnabr�ck, and Coburg, and at the University of Jena, where he studied theology and Oriental languages, and took his master's degree in 1683, when he was appointed privet-docent. In 1686 he went to Leipsic, where he established himself as privet-docent in Oriental and classical languages. There he came into contact with Valentin Alberti, who had interested a number of theological students in a deeper and more practical study of the Bible. In order to become better acquainted with the new movement, Hardt went to Dresden and spent a year with Philipp Jacob Spener, and be then resolved to become an expounder of the Scriptures. On the recommendation of Spener, he went to Kaspar Hermann Sandhagen, the famous superintendent of L�neburg, in order to prepare himself better for his vocation. There he met Rudolf August, duke of Brunswick, who took a lively interest in him, received him into his service as librarian and secretary in 1688, and had him appointed professor of Oriental languages at the University of Helmstedt in 1890. Their friendship ceased only with the duke's death in 1704.

This professorship opened an avenue to Hardt for an extensive literary activity. At the same time his attitude changed in regard to the Bible and Pietism; and under the influence of Thomasius (q.v.) his rationalism became so pronounced that he was censured by the official visitors to the university, sad in 1713 forbidden longer to deliver exegetical lectures on the Old Testament. He disregarded this order, however, and complications followed which ended in his retirement as professor (1727), altho he was permitted to act as sublibrarian for the university. A later publication on Job brought on him another and more severe censure, and this decided him to devote his energies thenceforth to investigations of the history of the Reformation and of the Council at Basel. These were never published, but the manuscripts are preserved in the

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library at Stuttgart, had are valuable as containing lists and criticisms of books now lost. Hardt was a genuine admirer and earnest student of the great classical and Oriental scholars. .'Tia literary activity resulted in the compilation of over 300 books, pamphlets, and treatises-most of them in advance of his contemporaries. His collection of manuscripts on the Reformation, Antigua literarum monumenta, autographa Lutheri aliorumque celebrir orum virorum 1517-1546 (3 vols., Brunswick, 1690 1693), and on the Councils of Basel and Constance, Magnum oecumenicum Constantiense conciJium (6 vols., Frankfort, 1700-02), are still valuable because of his diligent use of the principal archives.

P. Tschackert.

Bibliography: F. Limey, Hermann von der Hardt, Carls ruhe, 1891; A. Tholuck, Akademisches Leben des 17. Jahrhunderts, ji. 49-61, Halle, 1854.