Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/319

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

ECKART


273


ECEHART


dence goes, altogether improbable. In rebuttal it should be noted that Eck received the Last Sacra- ments with exemplary piety, and that his funeral in the Frauenkirche at Ingolstadt was marked by great solemnity.

As a writer Eck was prolific. His most important works are : " Loci communes adversus Lutherum et alios hostes ecclesiEe" (Arguments against Luther and Other Enemies of the Church), printed first in 1.525, 45th edition in 1576; essays on the Primacy of Peter, Penance, the .Sacrifice of the Mass, Purgatory, etc. He also published numerous polemical writings against Luther, Zwingli, Bucer, and other leaders of the new religious movements. He compiled the re- sults of the numerous disputations in which he partici- pated and the sermons he preached on various sub- jects. In 15.39 he published a German version of the Scriptures, translating the Old Testament from the original and adopting Emser's translation of the New Testament. Eck, however, was abler as a theologian than as a stylist. He also published a collection of most of his writings prior to 1535 entitled "Opera Johannis Eckii contra Ludderum in 5 partes" (Ingol- stadt, 1530-1535). In this edition parts I-II contain his polemical writings on the Primacy, Penance, etc. against Luther; parts III-IV, his reports of the de- bates and his polemics against Zwingli, Karlstadt, and Bucer; also the "Loci Communes", part V (4 vols.), his Latin sermons.

Wiedemann, Dr. Johann Eck (Ratisbon, 1865), with list of Eck's works; Brecheh in Allgetneine deutsche Biographie (Leipzig, 1877), V, 596-602; Gunther, Johann Eck als Geo- ffraph in Forschungen zur Kultur- und Literaturgesch. Bayems (Munich, 1894), II, 140-162; Schneid, Dr. Johann Eck u. das kirchliche Zinsverbot in Historisch-poliiische Blatter (1891), CVIII, 241 sq.,321sq.,473 sq., 570 sq., 659 sq., 789 sq.; Bauch, Die Anfdnge des Humanismus in Ingolstadt (Munich, 1901); Greving, Johann Eck als junger Gelehrter in Reformationsgesch. Studien u. Teite (Miinster, 1906), I.

J. P. KlRSCH.

Eckart, .4n.selm, missionary, b. at Bingen, Ger- many, 4 .\ugust, 1721; d. at the College of Polstok, Polish Russia, 29 June, 1809. Entering the Society of Jesus at nineteen, he was sent as a missionary to Brazil. Two years after his arrival in that country, he and his brethern were seized like felons and carried to Portugal, where they languished in prison till death released them or till the kmg, in whose name it was all done, was summoned by his own Judge. Father Eckart was confined for eighteen years in the under- ground dungeons of Almeida and St. Julian. He wrote the story of his own sufferings and those of his companions in prison. Upon the death of Joseph I of Portugal in 1777, Pombal fell into disgrace, and those of his victims who survived were released from their loathsome dungeons. The Society of Jesus, which had been suppressed four years earlier by the Brief of Cle- ment XIV, had continued to exLst in Russia. Father Eckart applied for readmission, and for thirty-two years following had the consolation of wearing the habit of the proscribed order. After filling the office of master of novices at Diinaburg, he was sent to the College of Polstok, where this venerable confessor of Jesus Christ, the last survivor, perhaps, of the cruel- ties of Pomb.al, preserved in extreme old age the same vigour of soul which had sustained him in the mis- sions and in captivity. He died full of days and merits in the eighty-eighth year of his age and the sixty-ninth after his admission to the Society.

Carayon, Documents Incdits Les Prisons du Afarquis de

Pomhal. X.XIX. 113. 283, 327; Sommervogel. Bihl. dela c. de J., 111,330; vo^MvRR. Journal. . ., VII, 295sqq.; DeGuilherhy, Menoloqe de la c. de J., Assistance de Germanic (Paris, 1.898), .556; Weld, Suppression of the Societu of Jesus in the Portu- guese Dominions (London, 1877), XI. XIII.

Edward P. Spillane.

Eckebert (Ekbert, Egbert), Abbot of Schonau, b. in the early part of the twelfth century of a distin- guished family along the Middle Rhine; d. 28 March, v.— 18


1184, in the Abbey of Schonau. He was for a time canon in the collegiate church of Sts. Cassius and Florentius at Bonn. In 1155 he became a Benedic- tine at Schonau in the Diocese of Trier, and in 1166, after the death of the first abbot, Hildelin, he was placed at the head of the monastery. A man of great zeal, he preached and wrote much lor the salvation of souls and the conversion of heretics. The Cathari, then numerous in the Rhineland, gave him especial concern. While a canon at Bonn he often had occa- sion to debate with heretics, and after his monastic profession, was invited by Archbishop Rainald of Cologne to debate publicly with the leaders of the sect in Cologne itself. His chief works are: "Sermones contra Catharos" with extracts on the Manichfeans, from St. Augustine (P. L., CXCV) ; " De Laude Crucis" (ibid.); "Soliloquium seu Jleditationes" (ibid.); "Ad Beatam Virginem Deiparam sermo panegyricus" (ibid., CLXXXIV); " De sancta Elizabetha viVgine", a biography of his sister, a Benedictine nun and a famous visionary and mystic (see Elizabeth of Schonau), a portion of which is in P. L., CXCV, also in "Acta SS.",_J_une, IV, 501 sqq. (ed. Palm^, 1867). A complete edition of his works is found in Roth, " Die Visionen der hi. Elisabeth und die Schriften der Aebte Ekbert und Emecho von Schonau" (Briinn, 1884).

Streber in Kirchenlex., s. v. Egbert; Hcrter, Nomencla- ior (Innsbruck, 1889), IV; Chevauer, Bio-Bibl. (Paris, 1905), s. V.

Francis J. Schaefer.

Eckhart, Joh.\nn Georg von (called Eccard be- fore he was ennobled), flerman historian, b. at Duin- gen in the principality of Kalenberg, 7 Sept., 1664; d. at Wurzburg, 9 Feb., 1730. After a good preparatory training at Schulpforta he went to Leipzig, where at first, at the desire of his mother, he studied theology, but soon turned his attention to philology and history. On completing his course he became secretary to Field- Marshal Count Flemming, the chief minister of the Elec- tor of Saxony; after a short time, however, he went to Hanover to find a permanent position, (jwing to his extensive learning he was soon useful to the famous historian Leibniz, who, in 1694, took Eckhart as as- sistant and was, until death, his large-hearted patron and generous friend. Through the efforts of Leibniz Eckhart was appointed professor of history at Helm- stedt in 1706, and in 1714 councillor at Hanover. After the death of Leibniz he was made librarian and his- toriographer of the royal family of Hanover, and was soon after ennobled by Emperor Charles VI, to whom he had dedicated his work " Origines Austriacic". For reasons which have never been clearly explained he gave up his position, in 1723, and fled from Hanover, perhaps on account of debt, to the Benedictine mon- astery of Corvey, and thence to the Jesuits at Cologne, where he became a Catholic. Not long after this the Prince-Bishop of Wiirzburg, Johann Philipp von Schonborn, appointed Eckhart his librarian and his- toriographer. In his work Eckhart was influenced by the new school of French historians, and gave careful attention to the so-called auxiliary sciences, above all to diplomatics; he also strove earnestly to follow a strictly scientific method in his treatment of historical materials. Together with Leibniz he may be con- sidered as a founder of the critical school of historical writing. Besides the help he rendered Leibniz, of whom he prepared an affectionately respectful obitu- ary (in Murr, "Journal fiir Kunstgeschichte", VII), he issued a number of independent works. His chief work, while professor at Helmstedt, is his "Historia studii etymologici linguie germanicjB haetenus impensi" (Hanover, 1711), a literary and historical study of all works bearing on the investigation of the Teutonic languages. At Hanover he compiled a "Corpus his- toricum medii «vi" (Leipzig, 1723), in two volumes; at Wurzburg he published the " Commentarii de rebus