MODESTUS: Anti-Gnostic writer. According to Eusebius (Hist. seer., IV., w., of. xxi.), an otherwise unknown Modestus, contemporary of Philip of Gortyna end Irenesus, wrote an impress ive, but no longer extant, tract against Mareion. Jerome (De roer. ill., iii.) refers to other syntsg mats by Modestus, which "are regarded as spuri ous by the learned." The source of this intelligence is no longer ascertainable. G. Badana.
MOEHLER, mv'ler, JOHANN ADAM: Roman Catholic historian; b. at Igersheim (37 m, s.s.w. of Würzburg), Württemberg, May 8, 1798; d. at Würzburg Apr. 12, 1838. In 1814 he entered the lyceum of Ellwangen, devoting himself to the study of philosophy and theology, and, in 1817, removed with the Roman Catholic faculty to Tübingen. He was ordained priest in 1819, and became vicar at Weilerstadt and Riedlingen, but soon returned to Tübingen to prepare himself for academic ac. tivity; in 1820 he became repetent, and was in vited by the theological faculty to become privat docent in church history and its related branches (1822). After visiting various universities he be gan in 1823 to lecture on church history, petrology, and church polity: A series of essays written at that time for tile Tubtrlger Quartalschrift (after his death collected and published by Döllinger, in CJesam»ielte Schriften and Au ja6tie, 2 vols., Regena. burg, 1839-40) reveals an almost Protestant stand point. Among other abuses of the Roman Catholic Church he attacked the withholding of the cup from the laity and the use of the Latin language in worship. His first larger work, Die Einheit der Kirche oder tlaa Pr(.nzip den Knthdiciafnua, dafgerrtellt im (ieiate der Ifirchent4tel' der drei eratert Jahrhan tierEe (Tübiugen, 1825, 2d ed., 1843), attracted con siderable attention among scholars. Möhler dis tinguishes between the mystical unity of the Holy Spirit, which unites all believers in a spiritual com munity, sad the rational unity, which unites them in the doctrine of the Church as the intellectual ex pression of the Christian spirit, in opposition to the heresies as the plurality without a unity; and finally between the unity in the plurality, that is, the preservation of the individuality in the unity of believers. In the second part of the work the
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Bibliography: A life by Reithmayer was prefixed to the 5th ad. of the'Sym6olik, Mainz, 1838, and a sketch by the -Ante author is in KL, viii. 1677-1689. Other lives we by B. Warmer, Regensburg, 1866; J. Friedrich, Munich, 1894; A. Knapfer, ib.1896; L. Monastier, Lumnne, 1897.
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