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University of Heidelberg, which he left in the following year for Tubingen. After taking his master's degree in 1501, he began the study of theology under Johann Jakob Lempp, and studied the elements of Hebrew and political economy with Konrad Summenhart. He left Tiibingen in 1501 on account of the plague and after a year at Cologne

finally settled at Freiburg-im-Breis-

As early as the spring of 1517 Eck had entered into friendly relations with Luther, who had regarded him as in harmony with his own views, but this illusion was short-lived. In his Obelisci Eck attacked Luther's theses, which had been sent

him by Scheurl, and accused him of

z. Dispute- promoting the heresy of the Bohemian boas with Brethren and of fostering. anarchy

Luther and within the Church. Luther replied in Carlstadt. his Asterisci adversxes obeliseos Eccii,

while Carlstadt defended Luther's views of indulgences and engaged in a violent controversy with Eck. A mutual desire for a public disputation led to a compact between Eck and Luther by which the former pledged himself to meet Carlstadt in debate at Erfurt or Leipsic, on condition that Luther abstain from all participation in the discussion. In Dec., 1518, Eck published the twelve theses which he was prepared to uphold against Carlstadt, but since they were aimed at Luther rather than at the ostensible opponent, Luther addressed an open letter to Carlstadt, in which he declared himself ready to meet Eck in debate.

and free will work in harmony toward the common end. Carlstadt then proceeded to prove that good works are to be ascribed to the agency of God alone, whereupon Eck yielded so far as to admit that free will is passive in the beginning of conversion, although he maintained that in 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. Despite the fact that Eck was thus virtually forced to abandon his position, he succeeded, through his good memory and his dialectic skill, in confusing the heavy-witted Carlstadt and carried off the nominal victory. He was far less successful against Luther, who, as Eck himself confessed, was his superior in memory, acumen, and learning. After a disputation lasting twenty-three days (July 427), Eck was greeted as victor by the theologians of the University of Leipaic, who overwhelmed him with honors and sent him away with gifts. The impression produced by Eck upon his auditors during that momentous time may be best learned from the account of the humanist Peter of Moselle, who described him as tall, stout, and squarely built. His voice was full and rolling, and of an admirable quality for an actor, or even for a public crier, while the sum total of his features would seem to argue the butcher or the professional soldier rather than the theologian. As far as his intellectual gifts were concerned, he had a wonderful memory, which, if supplemented by other talents in like proportion, would have made him a marvel, but he lacked swiftness of apprehension and deep insight, so that his masses of arguments and citations were indiscriminate, and he was filled with an inconceivable impudence though he had the cleverness to conceal it.

Soon after his return to Ingolstadt,, Eck attempted to persuade Elector Frederick of Saxony to have Luther's works burned in public, and during the year 1519 he published no leas than eight writings against the new movement. He failed, however, to obtain a condemnatory decision from the universities appointed to pronounce on the outcome of the Leipsic disputation. Erfurt returned the proceedings of the meeting to the Saxon duke without signifying its approval, while Paris, after repeated urging, gave an ambiguous decision limited to " the doctrine of Luther so far as investigated." Eck's only followers were the aged heretic-hunter Hoogstraten and Emaer of Leipaic, together with the allied authorities of the universities of Cologne and Louvain. Luther returned Eck's assaults with more than equal