HAHN, PHILIPP MATTHAEUS: German Pietist; b. at Scharnhausen (6 m. s.e. of Stuttgart) Nov. 26, 1739; d. at Echterdingen (6 m. a. of Stuttgart) May 2, 1790. After preparation for the university at home, he studied theology in Tübingen (1756-60), and became preacher at Onstmettingen (1764), at Kornwestheim (1770) and at Echterdingen (1781). He used his leisure in mechanics, for which he had decided genius. In theology he stood midway between Bengel and Oetinger, less orthodox, more of a theosophist than the former, but not following the latter in his alchemistic views. Like Oetinger, he was intent upon a living, comprehensive, and systematic knowledge of divine revelation as laid down in Holy Scripture. Hahn considered the fundamental idea from which everything else was to be derived to be "the kingdom of Jesus." He held a dynamic idea of the Trinity; in God the One there are originally three egos or sources of life, analogous to the coexistence of the bodily, psychic, and spiritual life in man. The son is the most perfect reflection of the Godhead who only in him becomes conscious, but in relation to the world he is called the first-born. As such, he is, according to his heavenly humanity,

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not absolutely eternal and absolutely divine. The creature on account of his great unlikeness could not be united with God without a mediator who, being the first-born, is the fundamental being of the first angelic world of which one part, under Lucifer, separated itself from its head. Consequently the world of the fallen angels became dark, sensual, and earthly, and out of its disorderly mass the earthly world was created. The first-born reestablished the earth as a dwelling-place of lower creatures and created man as a shadow of his own image. Like the other theosophists, Hahn taught a double fall; for if man had not fallen, the first-born would have been united with man as he was with Jesus, and thus the connection with God would have been reestablished; but now the earthly must again become heavenly and the flesh must become spirit. This takes place in the incarnation and death of the first-born. The earthly life of Jesus, who was sinless but subject to temptation, consisted in continually mortifying the flesh by means of the spirit; thus he realized the reunion of humanity with God. On account of his heterodoxy Hahn was denounced as a Socinian before the consistory and compelled to recant, and his writings were publicly forbidden (March 7, 1781). He translated the New Testament [Winterthurl (1777) and published among other works: Betrachtungen and Predigten Ober die Evangelien (1774); Vermischte theologasche Schriften (1779); Erbauungsstunden t%ber die O fjenbarung (1795).

(C. Kolb.)

Bibliography: Philipp MatWMw Harm, Stuttgart, 1858; C. G. Barth, Siaddeutsche Oripinalian, parts 2-4, 4 parts, Stuttgart, 1828-38; W. Claus, Witrttembagiaahe VBtar, ii. 148 sqq., Calw, 1888.