22 Facts About Johann Eck

Johann Eck's father, Michael Maier, was a peasant and bailiff, or Amtmann, of the village.

Johann Eck left Tubingen in 1501 on account of the plague and after a year at Cologne finally settled at Freiburg University, at first as a student of theology and law and later as a successful teacher where he was mentor to the prominent Anabaptist leader of Waldshut and Nikolsburg, Balthasar Hubmaier, and later retaining this relationship during their move to the University of Ingolstadt.

Johann Eck's aim had been to find a via media between old and new.

Johann Eck verbally assailed his friend, humanist and jurist Ulrich Zasius, for a doctrine proclaimed ten years before, and Erasmus's Annotationes in Novum Testamentum.

Karlstadt then proceeded to argue that good works are to be ascribed to the agency of God alone, whereupon Johann Eck yielded so far as to admit that free will is passive in the beginning of conversion, although he maintained that in the course of time it enters into its rights; so that while the entirety of good works originates in God, their accomplishment is not entirely the work of God.

Johann Eck was less successful against Luther, who, according to Eck, was his superior in memory, acumen, and learning.

Johann Eck did succeed in making Luther admit that there was some truth in the Hussite opinions and declare himself against the Pope, but this success only embittered his animosity against his opponents.

Johann Eck forced Luther to declare that Ecumenical Councils were sometimes errant, as in the case when Constance condemned Hus.

Johann Eck was greeted as victor by the theologians of the University of Leipzig.

Johann Eck failed to obtain a condemnatory decision from the universities appointed to pronounce on the outcome of the Leipzig disputation.

Johann Eck was more highly esteemed as "the dauntless champion of the true faith" at Rome than in Germany, where he induced the universities of Cologne and Louvain to condemn Luther's writings, but failed to enlist the German princes.

Johann Eck now believed himself in a position to crush not only the "Lutheran heretics", but his humanist critics.

Universities and humanists were at one in denunciation of the outrage; and, due the attitude of the people, Johann Eck was barely able to escape from Saxony alive.

In 1521 and 1522 Johann Eck was again in Rome, reporting on the results of his nunciature.

In return for this action of the duke, who had at first been opposed to the policy of repression, Johann Eck obtained for him, during a third visit to Rome in 1523, valuable ecclesiastical concessions.

Johann Eck continued unabated in his zeal against the reformers, publishing eight major works from 1522 to 1526.

Johann Eck appropriated the revenues of his parish of Gunzburg, while he relegated its duties to a vicar.

Johann Eck was the prime mover in many heresy trials, including that of Leonhard Kaser, whose history was published by Luther.

The affair ended decidedly in favor of Johann Eck, who induced the authorities to enter on a course of active persecution of Zwingli and his followers.

At the Diet of Augsburg, Johann Eck played the leading part among the Roman Catholic theologians.

Johann Eck was at the Colloquy of Worms in 1540 where he showed some signs of a willingness to compromise.

In 1541 Johann Eck published his Against the Defense of the Jews.