KILBER, HEINRICH. — Jesuit, theologian, born at Mainz on 8 March 1710, died at Heidelberg on 25 October 1783. He first taught literature at Würzburg and Heidelberg, then for 22 years theology at Würzburg, occupying from 1764 the new chair of Sacred Scripture. In 1773, after the suppression of the Society, he was appointed rector of the Heidelberg Seminary.
To him are owed the Institutiones theologicae (4 vols., Würzburg 1751–54), which comprise only the treatises: De principiis theologicis; De Deo Uno et Trino; De peccato et Gratia; De virtutibus theologicis; these, together with other treatises composed by Frs. I. Neubauer, T. Holtzelau, U. Munier, formed the so-called “Würzburg” course: Theologia dogmatica, polemica, scholastica et moralis (11 vols., 1716–71), a comprehensive, solid, learned work still valid today. Another work by Kilber, the Analysis biblica (3 vols., Heidelberg 1773–79), also enjoyed great success; it is an explanation of the books of the Old and New Testaments with the aim of providing a more complete and accessible knowledge of Catholic doctrine (new ed. with additions, ed. J. Tailhan [Paris 1856]; ed. J. Klinkovström [Vienna 1869]).