PHILLIPS, GEORGE

Legal historian, canonist; b. Königsberg, East Prussia, Jan. 6, 1804; d. Aigen, near Salzburg, Austria, Sept. 6, 1872. Phillips, whose father was English and whose mother was Scottish, studied law in Berlin and Munich, where he was greatly influenced by Friedrich von Savigny and Johann Eichhorn. Phillips taught history and law at the Universities of Berlin (1827–28), Munich (1834–47), Innsbruck (1850), and Vienna (1851–72). His friend Karl Jarcke influenced his conversion to Catholicism (1828). Together with Guido Görres he founded the Historischpolitischen Blätter (1838). He played a leading role in the revival of German Catholic life and scholarship, but his thought and politics became progressively more conservative. As a champion of ultramontanism, he contributed greatly to popularizing in Germanic countries the doctrines of papal primacy and infallibility and to the utramontane victory at vatican council i. Joseph de maistre's views had much influence on Phillips, who

has been called a German de Maistre. Phillips's numerous writings, composed in clear, elegant German and replete with erudition, were widely read and at one time very influential. He ranks as one of the leading German canonists of the 19th century.

Bibliography: Works. Versuch einer Darstellung des Angelsächsischen Rechts (Göttingen 1825); Deutsche Geschichte mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Religion, Recht und Verfassung, 2 v. (Berlin 1832–34); Deutsche Reichs und Rechtsgeschichte (Munich 1845); Die Diözesansynode (Freiburg 1849); Kirchenrecht, 7 v. (Regensburg 1845–72); Vermischte Schriften, 3 v. (Vienna 1856–60). Literature. j. f. von schulte, Allgemeine deutsche Biographie 26:80–88. j. f. von schulte, Die Geschichte der Quellen und der Literatur des kanonischen Rechts, 3 v. in 4 pts. (Stuttgart 1875–80; repr. Graz 1956) 3.1:875–886. g. von pÖlnitz, "George Phillips, ein Grossdeutscher Konservativer in der Paulskirche," Historische Zeitschrift 155.1 (1937) 51–97. j. fuchs, Magisterium, Ministerium, Regimen (Bonn 1941). b. poehlmann, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 8:468.

[s. j. tonsor]