KLÜPFEL, ENGELBERT. - Augustinian theologian, b. 18 Jan. 1733 at Wipfeld (Franconia), d. at Friburgo in Br. on 8 July 1811. He entered religious life at Oberndorf (1750), and studied at Friburgo di Svizzera, Erfurt, and Friburgo in Brisgovia, at whose University he held, with great distinction, the chair of theology for 38 years (1767–1805).
He wrote: De statu naturae purae (Friburgo in Br. 1768); De eximiis datibus humanae naturae ante peccatum (there 1769); Christus sacerdos sec. ordinem Melchisedech (there 1772); De precibus pro defunctis (there 1773). In 1775 he founded the Nova bibliotheca ecclesiastica Friburgensis, of which 7 vols. appeared (there 1775–90), containing many dissertations that vigorously attacked the rationalism of Semler; Institutiones theologiae dogmaticae (2 vols., Vienna 1789). This work, improved by the bishop of Linz, G. T. Ziegler
(d. 1852), became the official textbook of the seminaries and universities of Austria; doctrinally orthodox, it reflects, in its methodology, the then prevailing Enlightenment conceptions. During the French Revolution K. showed the weakness of declaring, together with his teaching colleagues, the lawfulness of the civil oath of the clergy.
BBL.: Hurter, IV, cols. 563–67; W. Rauch, E. K., ein führender Theologe der Aufklärungszeit, Friburgo in Br. 1922; M. Grabmann, Storia della teologia cattolica, Italian trans. by G. Di Fabio, 2nd ed., Milano 1939, pp. 307–308. Antonio Piolanti