Eck, Johann Maier von definition of Eck, Johann Maier von in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

Eck, Johann Maier von (yō`hän mī`ər fən ĕk), 1486–1543, German Roman Catholic theologian. He was of peasant stock, the name von Eck being taken from his birthplace in Swabia. He was a brilliant student and became a professor at Freiburg in his youth. He was renowned in Germany for his dialectic skill in public disputation and for his deep knowledge of church history and canon law. He had been suspected of unsound theology because of some of his humanistic ideas, but he had no hesitation in condemning (1518) the new theses of Martin Luther 4)), which was written by Melanchthon at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 with the sanction of Luther, who was not permitted to attend. About this time the control of the Lutheran Church had passed further into the hands of the Protestant princes.
..... Click the link for more information. , with whom he held a public discussion at Leipzig in 1519. Eager for the condemnation of the heresy he saw in Lutheranism, he went to Rome and returned with the papal bull condemning Luther (1520). From that time he was a leader in the struggle against the reforming party in Germany. He was one of the leading theologians at the Diet of Augsburg (1530). He also attacked the Swiss reforms of Zwingli. Eck is known as the first theologian who forced Luther into a position of definite, open opposition to the teachings and practice of the Roman Catholic Church.