COCLEO (DOBENECK), GIOVANNI. — Eminent Catholic polemicist, born in 1479, died at Breslau on 11 January 1552. He was called C. after the town of Wendelstein (Cochlea), where he was born. He fought against the reformers of his time.
Having completed his first studies at Nuremberg, he entered the University of Cologne in 1504, where in 1507 he obtained the degree of « magister artium ». In 1515 he accompanied Pirckheimer’s nephews to Bologna and received his doctorate at Ferrara in 1517; he then travelled to Rome. On returning to his homeland, he was initially not opposed to Luther’s activity, believing it useful for removing certain abuses that had arisen in the Church, but he soon perceived how far that rebellion could lead—namely, to the destruction of religious unity and of the entire ecclesiastical legislation; he then became one of the strongest opponents of the new doctrines and, in order to continue his struggle, even renounced an advantageous position offered to him in Rome.
In 1524 he accompanied Cardinal Campeggio to Nuremberg and, in 1529, Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg to the Diet of Speyer. In that same year he was summoned by Duke George of Saxony to succeed his secretary, Girolamo Emser. At the duke’s death, in 1539, he withdrew to Breslau; he accompanied Bishop Hutter of Eichstätt to the Conference of Regensburg; in 1549 he is found in Mainz, devoted to writing; and in 1549 in Breslau, where he remained until his death.
His struggle against the so-called « reformers » was tireless; from 1522 until his death, not a year passed in which he did not publish some writing against them. His extensive theological erudition guided him securely in the judgments he passed on the new doctrines; skilled in the handling of Holy Scripture, he always had at hand the texts necessary for refuting his opponents’ arguments; an attentive observer, he knew how to make use of the many diets and assemblies in which he took part in order to penetrate deeply into the reformers’ intentions. His history of the Hussites is still valued; his commentaries on Luther’s acts and writings from 1517 to 1546 show him to have been better informed than many other writers, for example concerning the true reason for Luther’s journey to Rome in 1511 and the civil war in Frankfurt (1525). The extracts he gives from the broadsheets and polemical writings of his time are also of great value. In 1529, in his work against Luther, Adversus cucullatum Minotaurum Wittenbergensem, he demonstrates the contradictions into which the heresiarch falls. His writing on the twenty-nine reasons justifying Communion under one species also dates from that year. In 1540 he presented King of the Romans Ferdinand I with his observations on the twenty-eight articles of the Augsburg Confession and began his Philippics against Philip Melanchthon, of whom he admits that his outbursts were indeed less crude than Luther’s, but more hateful because of the author’s fallacies, apparent gentleness, and serpentine hypocrisy. Against Calvin he wrote on the veneration of relics, and against Musculus and Bullinger on the Priesthood and Sacrifice of the New Law. C.’s writings also contain certain shortcomings; friends and enemies criticize his style, which was not always correct, and at times violent and incoherent. The title he gives Luther, Minotaurus cucullatus, and the style of the entire pamphlet indicate that he knew how to answer his opponents in kind and, like them, when necessary, to sting and mock, without ever descending to their vulgar and ignoble level. The need to respond quickly and without immediate preparation to the sheets and pamphlets that Luther profusely cast before the public, sowing his false doctrines, explains to some extent the defects in C.’s writings, imposed by the urgency of enlightening and guiding clergy and laity, all of whom were passionately interested in the questions then under debate.