Johann Eck - Peace Overtures

Peace Overtures

For the upcoming Diet of Augsburg, while still at Ingolstadt, Eck compiled what he considered to be 404 heretical propositions from the writings of the reformers as an aid to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. At Augsburg he was charged by the emperor to draw up, in concert with twenty other theologians, a refutation of the Lutheran Augsburg Confession, which had been delivered to the emperor on 25 June 1530, but he had to rewrite it five times before it suited the emperor. It was known as the Confutatio pontificia, embodying the Catholic reaction to the reformers. He also was involved in the fruitless negotiations with the Protestant theologians, including Philipp Melanchthon, that took place at Augsburg; Eck with Wimpina and Cochlæus met the Lutherans in August.

He was at the Colloquy of Worms in 1540 where he showed some signs of a willingness to compromise. In January 1541 he renewed these efforts and succeeded in impressing Melanchthon as being prepared to give his assent to the main principles of the reformers, e.g. Justification by faith; but at the diet of Regensburg in the spring and summer of 1541 his old violence reasserted itself in opposing all efforts at reconciliation and persuading the Catholic princes to reject the "Regensburg Interim" proposed.

The last important phase of Eck's activity was his conflict with Martin Bucer over the latters published report of the 1541 diet of Regensburg.