COCHLAEUS (Dobeneck), Giovanni. — Eminent Catholic polemicist, born in 1479, died in Breslau on 1 January 1552. He was called C. from the village of Wendelstein (Cochlea) where he was born. He fought against the contemporary reformers.
After completing his early studies in Nuremberg, he entered the University of Cologne in 1504, where in 1507 he obtained the degree of *magister artium*. In 1515 he accompanied the nephews of Pirckheimer to Bologna and earned his doctorate in 1517 at Ferrara; he then made a journey to Rome. Upon his return home, he was initially not averse to the activity of Luther, believing it useful in removing certain abuses that had crept into the Church, but soon he realized how far that rebellion could lead—namely, to the destruction of religious unity and of all ecclesiastical legislation. He then became one of the strongest opponents of the new doctrines; indeed, to continue his struggle, he declined a promising position offered to him in Rome.
In 1524 he accompanied Cardinal Campeggio to Nuremberg and in 1529 Cardinal Albrecht 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. After the duke’s death in 1539, he retired to Breslau; he accompanied Bishop Hutter of Eichstätt to the Conference of Regensburg; in 1549 he is found in Mainz, engaged in writing; and in 1549 in Breslau, where he remained until his death.
His unceasing struggle against the so-called “reformers” produced a steady stream of writings against them from 1522 until his death. His vast theological erudition guided him securely in judging the new doctrines; skilled in handling Holy Scripture, he always had at hand the necessary texts to refute his adversaries’ arguments; an attentive observer of the many diets and assemblies he attended, he knew how to penetrate deeply into the intentions of the reformers. His history of the Hussites is still esteemed; his commentaries on the acts and writings of Luther from 1517 to 1546 show him better informed than many other writers, for example on the true reason for Luther’s journey to Rome in 1511 and on the civil war in Frankfurt (1525). Moreover, the extracts he provides from the pamphlets and polemical writings of his time are of great value. In 1529, in the work against Luther, *Adversus cucullatum Minotaurum Wittenbergensem*, he exposes the contradictions into which the heresiarch falls. Also from that year is his treatise on the twenty-nine reasons that justify Communion under one kind. In 1540 he presented to King Ferdinand I of the Romans his observations on the twenty-eight articles of the Augsburg Confession and began his *Philippics* against Philip Melanchthon, whom he admitted had outbursts less crude than Luther’s but more hateful because of his fallacies, his ostentatious sweetness, and the serpentine hypocrisy of the author. Against Calvin he wrote on the veneration of relics, and against Musculus and Bullinger on the Priesthood and Sacrifice of the New Law.
Cochlaeus’s writings also have their shadows: friends and foes alike criticized his style, which was not always correct, sometimes violent and inconsistent. The title he gives Luther—*Minotaurus cucullatus*—and the style of the entire pamphlet show that he knew how to answer blow for blow, and like his adversaries, when necessary, to sting and mock, without ever stooping to their vulgar and ignoble level. The need to respond quickly and without immediate preparation to the pamphlets and booklets that Luther scattered abroad, sowing his false doctrines, explains in some measure the defects of Cochlaeus’s writings, dictated by the urgency of enlightening and guiding both ecclesiastics and laity, all of whom were passionately interested in the issues then under debate.