Author

Karl Joseph von Hefele

1809–1893

Karl Joseph von Hefele (1809–1893) was born at Unterkochen in Württemberg and studied at Tübingen, where he became professor of church history and patristics in 1840. He was a member of the Catholic Tübingen School. In 1869 he was appointed Bishop of Rottenburg, and he took part in the First Vatican Council, where he opposed the definition of papal infallibility as inopportune; he submitted to the definition in 1871.

His Conciliengeschichte, published in seven volumes from 1855, was the standard history of the councils of the Church. It sets out the documents and proceedings of each council in chronological order, with discussion of the controversies behind them, and was translated into English and French, the French edition being expanded by Henri Leclercq. He also edited the Apostolic Fathers.

The library holds the fifth volume of the English translation of his History of the Councils of the Church, which covers councils of the seventh and eighth centuries.

Works

Texts currently available in the library.

History of the Councils of the Church, volume 5

1896

A History of the Councils of the Church, volume V, by the German church historian Karl Joseph von Hefele, continues his extensive documentary history of the great councils and synods of Christianity, covering the period from A.D. 626 to the close of the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. Published in English by T. & T. Clark, this volume opens with a detailed treatment of the Monothelite controversies, examining the theological and political circumstances that led to the dispute over the wills and operations of Christ, the roles of Emperor Heraclius, Sergius of Constantinople, Cyrus of Alexandria, Sophronius of Jerusalem, Pope Honorius I, and St. Maximus the Confessor, and the eventual resolution of the controversy at the Sixth Ecumenical Council. Hefele combines chronological narrative with close examination of conciliar acts, papal and patriarchal correspondence, patristic testimony, and earlier historical scholarship, frequently discussing conflicting sources and questions of authenticity or chronology. The volume ultimately carries the history of the councils through the ecclesiastical controversies of the seventh and eighth centuries to the Second Council of Nicaea, making it an important reference work for the study of Christological controversy, conciliar history, and the development of Christian doctrine in the early medieval period.