HUBER, JOHANN NEPOMUK (1830-1879), German philosophical and theological writer, a leader of the Old Catholics, was born at Munich on the 18th of August 1830. Originally destined for the priesthood, he early began the study of theology. By the writings of Spinoza and Oken, however, he was strongly drawn to philosophical pursuits, and it was in philosophy that he “habilitated” (1854) in the university of his native place, where he ultimately became professor (extraordinarius, 1859; ordinarius, 1864). With Döllinger and others he attracted a large amount of public attention in 1869 by the challenge to the Ultramontane promoters of the Vatican council in the treatise Der Papst und das Koncil, which appeared under the pseudonym of “Janus,” and also in 1870 by a series of letters (Römische Briefe, a redaction of secret reports sent from Rome during the sitting of the council), which were published over the pseudonym Quirinus in the Allgemeine Zeitung. He died suddenly of heart disease at Munich on the 20th of March 1879.
Works.—The treatise Über die Willensfreiheit (1858), followed in 1859 by Die Philosophie der Kirchenväter, which was promptly placed upon the Index, and led to the prohibition of all Catholic students from attending his lectures; Johannes Scotus Erigena (1861); Die Idee der Unsterblichkeit (1864); Studien (1867); Der Proletarier; zur Orientirung in der sozialen Frage (1865); Der Jesuitenorden nach seiner Verfassung und Doctrin, Wirksamkeit und Geschichte (1873), also placed upon the Index; Der Pessimismus (1876); Die Forschung nach der Materie (1877); Zur Philosophie der Astronomie (1878); Das Gedächtnis (1878). He also published adverse criticisms of Darwin, Strauss, Hartmann and Häckel; pamphlets on Das Papsttum und der Staat (1870), and on Die Freiheiten der französischen Kirche (1871); and a volume of Kleine Schriften (1871).
See E. Zirngiebl, Johannes Huber (1881); and M. Carrière in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, xiii. (1881), and in Nord und Süd (1879).
HUBER, LUDWIG FERDINAND (1764-1804), German author, was born in Paris on the 14th of September 1764, the son of Michael Huber (1727-1804), who did much to promote the study of German literature in France. In his infancy young Huber removed with his parents to Leipzig, where he was carefully instructed in modern languages and literature, and showed a particular inclination for those of France and England. In Leipzig he became intimate with Christian Gottfried Körner, father of the poet; in Dresden Huber became engaged to Dora Stock, sister of Körner’s betrothed, and associated with Schiller, who was one of Körner’s stanchest friends. In 1787 he was appointed secretary to the Saxon legation in Mainz, where he remained until the French occupation of 1792. While here he interested himself for the welfare of the family of his friend Georg Forster, who, favouring republican views, had gone to Paris, leaving his wife Therese Forster (1764-1829) and family in destitute circumstances. Huber, enamoured of the talented young wife, gave up his diplomatic post, broke off his engagement to Dora Stock, removed with the Forster family to Switzerland, and on the death of her husband in 1794 married Therese Forster. In 1798 Huber took over the editorship of the Allgemeine Zeitung in Stuttgart. The newspaper having been prohibited in Württemberg, Huber continued its editorship in Ulm in 1803. He was created “counsellor of education” for the new Bavarian province of Swabia in the following year, but had hardly entered upon the functions of his new office when he died on the 24th of December 1804.
Huber was well versed in English literature, and in 1785 he published the drama Ethelwolf, with notes on Beaumont and Fletcher and the old English stage. He also wrote many dramas, comedies and tragedies, most of which are now forgotten, and among them only Das heimliche Gericht (1790, new ed. 1795) enjoyed any degree of popularity. As a critic he is seen to advantage in the Vermischte Schriften von dem Verfasser des heimlichen Gerichts (2 vols., 1793). As a publicist he made his name in the historical-political periodicals Friedenspräliminarien (1794-1796, 10 vols.) and Klio (1795-1798, 1819).
His collected works, Sämtliche Werke seit dem Jahre 1802 (4 vols., 1807-1819), were published with a biography by his wife Therese Huber. See L. Speidel and H. Wittmann, Bilder aus der Schiller-Zeit (1884).
HUBERT (Hucbertus, Hugbertus), ST (d. 727), bishop of Liége, whose festival is celebrated on the 3rd of November. The Bollandists have published seven different lives of the saint. The first is the only one of any value, and is the work of a contemporary. Unfortunately, it is very sparing of details. In it we see that Hubert in 708 succeeded Lambert in the see of Maestricht (Tongres), and that he erected a basilica to his memory. In 825 Hubert’s remains were removed to a Benedictine cloister in the Ardennes, which thenceforth bore his name (St Hubert, province of Luxemburg, Belgium), and ultimately became a considerable resort of pilgrims. The later legends (Bibliotheca hagiographica latina, nos. 3994-4002) are devoid of authority. One of them relates, probably following the legend of St Eustace, the miracle of the conversion of St Hubert. This conversion, represented as having been brought about while he was hunting on Good Friday by a miraculous appearance of a stag bearing between his horns a cross or crucifix surrounded with rays of light, has frequently been made the subject of artistic treatment. He is the patron of hunters, and is also invoked in cases of hydrophobia. Several orders of knighthood have been under his protection; among these may be mentioned the Bavarian, the Bohemian and that of the electorate of Cologne.