Johann Baptist von Hirscher (20 January 1788, Bodnegg – 4 September 1865) was a German Catholic theologian. He exerted a great influence in the areas of moral theology, homiletics, and catechetics. Life He was born in Alt-Ergarten, Bodnegg. His parents were pious peasants. He studied at Weissenau monastery school, the lyceum of Constance. The vicar general of the diocese, Ignaz Heinrich von Wessenberg became his patron. Hirscher attended the University of Freiburg and entered the seminary in Meersburg in 1809. He was ordained priest in 1810. For two years he was curate at (today part of Ellwangen); in 1812 he became a tutor in the theological faculty of Ellwangen; and in 1814 assistant professor of philosophy at the Ellwangen lyceum. In 1817 he was elected to the chair of moral and pastoral theology in University of Tübingen, where he remained twenty years. There he taught canon law, moral, and pastoral theology. In 1819 he was a founder and co-editor of the Theologische Quartalschrift. In 1837 he became professor of moral theology and catechetics at the University of Freiburg in the Breisgau, where, for a quarter of a century, he exerted a very great influence. His book on Christian morality, published in 1835, ran through five editions. He defined Christian morality as the scientific doctrine of the effective return of man to the Divine filiation through the merits of Christ. In the earlier editions some of his expressions and opinions, owing to the influence of the day, were censured; he corrected them by degrees and Kleutgen considers that the last editions are perfectly orthodox. The book marked a reaction against rationalistic morality. Hirscher closely traced the moral act to a religious origin and a religious end, and he detested virtue that did not proceed from faith. Though not satisfactory from the point of view of confessors, Hirscher's work, as his apologist Hettinger says, had a salutary effect, and Hettinger himself made use of it. Hirscher was made a canon in 1839, and dean of the chapter in 1850; after 1847 he was often sent as delegate of the university to the First Chamber of the Grand Duchy of Baden. He took a special interest in the education of poor and abandoned children, himself establishing three houses of refuge. In 1854 Hirscher was hostile to the definition of the Immaculate Conception, though he was not opposed to the dogma itself. His advanced