Klupfel, Engelbert

Klupfel, Engelbert a German Roman Catholic theologian of note, was born at Wipfelda, between Wirzburg and Schweinfurt, Jan. 18,1733. He received his early education in the school of Wurzburg, and in 1750 joined the Augustinian Hermits of that city. In 1751, however, he renounced his vows at Oberndorf, and went to study philosophy at Freiburg. Next he removed to Erfurt, and was finally ordained priest at Constance in 1756. In 1758 he became professor of philosophy at Mannerstadt, and in 1763 at Oberndorf; afterwards professor of theology at Mentz, and finally at Constance. The Austrian court wishing to replace the Jesuits by the Augustinians, he was made professor of the University of Freiburg, in Breisgau, in 1768. The Jesuits, however, tried to revenge themselves, and Klupfel's Theses de statu naturee purae impossibili were attacked by professor Waldner as tending to Jansenism. But Klupfel was sustained by the court. After the expulsion of the Jesuits he undertook the publication of that gigantic task, Nova bibliotheca ecclesiastica (Freib. 7 vols. 8vo, 1775-1790, after the plan of Ernesti's.Bibliotheca Critica), an effort which was highly commended by his contemporaries, and even brought him a recognition from Maria Theresa in her own handwriting, with the proffer of assistance, if needed, to complete the work. The Roman Catholic population, nevertheless, were opposed to him, and when, in a discourse at the jubilee of 1776, he attacked the system of indulgences, he was called by them " Martin Luther," and " the enemy of indulgences." He was involved in a controversy also with the Protestants by his recension of Semler's Institutio cad Christianam doctrinamn liberaliter discendamn. His principal work is his Institutiones theologice dogmatice (1789), which has been used as a textbook in many universities, but was quite transformed by Ziegler. He resigned his professorship in 1805, and died July 8,1811. Kliipfel was a man of very varied scholarship, and, being blessed with a long life and good health, he furnished the world, besides the extraordinary works already mentioned, as a result of his study of the Church fathers, a treatise entitled Tertulliani mens de indissolubilitate matrimonii in inmidelitate contracti, conjuge alterutro adfiden Christi converse (in the first vol. of Riegger's Oblectamenta Historice et Juris ecclesiastici [1776]): - Vindiciae vaticinii Jesaice 7:14 de Immanuele (1779, 4to), etc. See De vita et scriptis Conradi Celtis opus posthumum Engelberti Kluepfelii (pub. by J. C. Ruef and C. Zell, Friburgi, 1827); J. L. Hug, Elogium Kluepfelii Friburgi; Herzog, Real-Encyklop. 7:761; also Doring, Gelehrte Theol. Deutschlands, ii, 126 sq. (where, by mistake, he is treated as Klupfl, Johann Andreas). (J. H. W.)