Wimpina, Konrad

Wimpina, Konrad (really Koch; for he adopted the name Wimpina from the town of Wimpfen, his father's native place), a scholastic theologian and defender of Tetzel, the indulgence peddler, was born at Buchen, or Buchheim, in the Oden forest, A.D. 1459 or 1460. He was educated at Leipsic, and held a professorship in that university. In 1502 he became licentiate, and in 1503 doctor of theology. Envy charged him with holding heterodox views at this time, but he succeeded in repelling the charge before the archbishop of Magdeburg. In 1505 he, in his turn, assailed Martin Polichius with a charge of heterodoxy, because that writer had characterized scholastic speculations as useless, and had recommended philological studies as possessing a higher value for theology. Wimpina was associated with the founding of the University of Wittenberg, and immediately afterwards was made professor of theology and rector in the University of Frankfort-on- the-Oder. On Luther's promulgation of his theses against indulgences, Wimpina assumed the defense of Tetzel. Two disputations in Tetzel's favor appeared in 1517, which were generally credited to Wimpina, and which were chiefly remarkable as postulating a distinction between punitive and reformatory punishments in connection with the theory of indulgences. In 1530 Wimpina attended the Diet at Augsburg, in. the character of associate author of the Conflation of the Augsburg Confession, and also as a member of the commission appointed to effect a reconciliation of parties with respect to points in dispute. He died, either May 17 or June 1., 1531, in the monastery of Amorbach, Literature — Gieseler, Kirchengesch. vol. 3; Loscher, Reform. Acta und Documenta (Leips. 1720),1. 86 sq.; Unschuldige Nachrichten (ibid. 1716); De Woette, Luther's Brieffe, etc. (Berlin, 1825), vol. 1; Seckendorff, Ausfuhrl. Hist. d. Lutherthums (Leips. 1714); Sost and Olpe, Tetzel u. Luther, etc. (1853) [Rom. Cath.; Herzog, Real-Encyklop. s.v.