Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim

Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim (born Jan. 27, 1701, Trier [Germany]—died Sept. 2, 1790, Montequentin, Luxembourg) was a historian and theologian who founded Febronianism, the German form of Gallicanism, which advocated the restriction of papal power.

Hontheim’s extensive European travels brought him to Rome, where he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1728. He became professor of civil law at the University of Trier in 1734 and parish priest at Koblenz, Trier, in 1739. In 1748 he was appointed auxiliary bishop and vicar-general of Trier.

Under the pseudonym Justinus Febronius he published in 1763 his most important work, De Statu Ecclesiae et Legitima Potestate Romani Pontificis (“Concerning the State of the Church and the Legitimate Power of the Roman Pope”). Moved by concern over a divided Christendom and influenced by 18th-century rationalism, Hontheim urged the limitation of papal power and its subjection to the bishops (the pope’s equals, among whom he is first) and to general councils. His motive was to attract German Protestants to the Roman Catholic church by removing Protestant fears of the papacy. He reinforced this motive by pointing out that sovereigns are not subject to the pope and stipulating that sovereigns and bishops must resist the Roman tendency to encroach on their powers.

Despite Hontheim’s avowed intention not to attack papal power but to strengthen it by defining its limits, De Statu was condemned at Rome in February 1764 and placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. On the following May 21, Pope Clement XIII commanded all German bishops to suppress it. In 1781 Hontheim published a formal retraction, but its silence on the question of papal political power caused some subsequent doubt. He was reconciled with the church shortly before his death.