John Eck

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John Eck famously debated Luther, Zwingli, and other reformers. Most of the time he destroyed them. I've been reading up on Eck, and it seems to me that he had more in common - at least in his education and reading interests as the Reformers. Oh, if only they could have gotten along.

I was reading this article and it's so good I wanted to share it with you.

Rowan, Steven W. “Ulrich Zasius and John Eck: ‘Faith Need Not Be Kept with an Enemy,’” Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 8, No. 2, Humanism in the Early Sixteenth Century. (Jul., 1977), pp. 80.

Eck was an irritant in the academic world from the start, due both to his precocity and to his drive to master many fields of endeavor. Born in 1484, Eck arrived at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau in 1502 with an M.A. from Tubingen. While in Freiburg he formally studied theology and law, but he was also tutored in Hebrew, mathematics, and neo-Platonic philosophy by Gregor Reisch, prior of the Freiburg Carthusians, author of the popular encyclopedia, Margarita philosophica, and later father confessor to Maximilian I . Eck supported himself as an officer of the nominalists' college, and, though he was once fined for inciting students to riot against the realists, he studied under professors of both persuasions.4 His own approach to theological questions was eclectic, and he was a master of the several distinct skills required for a successful academic career in the first decades of the sixteenth century. Before he left Freiburg he gave evidence of his ability to deliver orations in the accepted humanist style, to dispute in the scholastic fashion using citations from established authorities, to write treatises, to deliver sermons, and to present lectures on various subject.

Despite his apparently brilliant record at Freiburg, Eck departed in October 1510 under a cloud of recrimination. The university faculty wanted him to stay on and teach, and for that purpose he had been promoted to the doctorate. His sudden departure immediately afterwards to take the chair in theology in Ingolstadt caused bad feeling on both sides. Eck sued the university for unpaid salary, and a settlement was reached in 1512 only after acrimonious litigation. One of the negotiators for the school was Dr. Ulrich
Zaius.

 

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The rest of the article is outstanding.