Caspar Riffel (January 19, 1807, Budesheim, Bingen, Germany – December 15, 1856) was a historian. He studied under

Heinrich Klee Heinrich Klee (20 April 1800 in Münstermaifeld, Rhine province – 28 July 1840 in Munich) was a German theologian and Biblical exegete who argued against liberal and Rationalist currents in Catholic thought. Biography At the age of sevent ...

at Mainz and Bonn and under Johann Adam Möhler at Tübingen. After his ordination to the priesthood (18 Dec., 1830) he was named assistant priest at Bingen. In 1835 he was appointed to a parish in

Giessen Giessen, spelled Gießen in German (), is a town in the German state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 univers ...

, and to the chair of moral theology in the local theological faculty. His transfer to the professorship in Church history followed in 1837. The publication of the first volume of his Church history in 1841 aroused a storm of indignation among Protestants, to whom his unflattering account of the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

was distasteful. The

Hessian A Hessian is an inhabitant of the German state of Hesse. Hessian may also refer to: Named from the toponym *Hessian (soldier), eighteenth-century German regiments in service with the British Empire **Hessian (boot), a style of boot **Hessian f ...

Government hastened to retire him (19 Nov., 1842). This measure caused intense indignation among the diocesan Catholic clergy, who denounced the Protestant atmosphere of the university. Riffel retired to Mainz, where in 1851 Bishop von Ketteler appointed him professor of Church history in his newly organized ecclesiastical seminary.

Publications

*''Geschichtliche Darstellung des Verhältnisses zwischen Kirche und Staat'' (Historical representation of the relationship between Church and State), Mainz, 1836; *''Predigten auf alle Sonn- und Festtage des Jahres'', Mainz, 1839–40, 3rd ed., 1854; *''Christliche Kirchengeschichte der neuesten Zeit'' (Recent history of the Christian Church), Mainz, 1841–46; *''Die Aufhebung des Jesuitenordens'' (The Rise of the Jesuits), 3rd ed., Mainz, 1855.

References

;Attribution * Cites: **GOYAU, ''L'Allemagne religieuse: le Catholicisme'' (Religious Germany: Catholicism), II (Paris, 1905), 313. {{DEFAULTSORT:Riffel, C 1807 births 1856 deaths 19th-century German historians 19th-century German male writers German male non-fiction writers