SCHWANE, JOSEPH

Theologian; b. Dorsten, Westphalia, April 2, 1824;d. Münster, June 6, 1892. He was ordained in 1849, became Privatdocent in the theological faculty at Münster in 1853, assistant professor of moral theology and history of dogma in 1859, and professor of the same in 1867. In 1881 he was given the chair of dogmatic theology, which he retained until his death. Schwane was the first German theologian to produce a major work on the whole history of dogma. His Dogmengeschichte (4 v., v.1, 2 Münster, 1862–69; v.3, 4, Freiburg 1882–90) is still considered a respectable work in its field as Schwane conceived this to be. Each volume covers a given period—pre-Nicene, late patristic, scholastic, and modern—and is divided according to the division of dogmatic topics commonly used in manuals of dogmatic theology in Schwane's time. However, the work as a whole is notably more dogmatic than historical in character, and it amounts in fact to an exposition of dogma in the light of history. For that reason it is not quite a history of dogma in the sense in which the term later came to be understood. Schwane also published two systematic works on moral theology, Spezielle Moraltheologie (3 v. Freiburg 1873–78) and Allgemeine Moraltheologie (Freiburg 1885), and some monographs of importance, among which were Controversia de valore baptismi haereticorum (Münster 1860), De operibus supererogatoriis et consiliis evangelicis (Münster 1868), Die theologische Lehre über die Verträge (Münster 1871), and Die eucharistische Opferhandlung (Freiburg 1889).

Bibliography: g. fritz, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. a. vacant, 15 v. (Paris 1903–50; Tables générales 1951–) 14.1:1583. e. hegel, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 9:531. m. ott, The Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. c. g. herbermann, 16 v. (New York 1907–14; suppl. 1922) 13:592.

[p. k. meagher]